Qass. 
Book. 



P ALE Y'S 
NATURAL THEOLOGY 

Htustratet*. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE, 

BY 

LORD BROUGHAM. 



DISCOURSE 



OF 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE AND THE 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 



HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., 

AND MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 



SECOND EDITION. 

LONDON: 
CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE STREET. 

MDCCCXXXV. 



ZBl/a/ 

~B77 



LONDON: 
Printed by William Clowes and Sons, 
Stamford Street. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Dedication ........ 1 

Introduction — Arrangement of Subjects and Explanation 

of Terms 5 

Analysis of the Work 11 



PART I. 

NATURE OF THE SCIENCE AND OV ITS EVIDENCES. 

Section I. — Introductory View of the Method of Investi- 
gation pursued in the Physical and Psychological 
Sciences ........ 15 

Section II. — Comparison of the Physical Branch of Natu- 
ral Theology with Physics 28 

Section III. — Comparison of the Psychological Branch of 

Natural Theology with Psychology . . . 52 

Section, IV. — Of the Argument a priori ... 81 

Section V. — Moral or Ethical Branch of Natural Theo- 
logy 98 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



% , Page 

Section VI. — Lord Bacon's Doctrine of Final Causes . 138 
Section VII. — Of Scientific Arrangement, and the Me- 
thods of Analysis and Synthesis .... 152 



OF THE ADVANTAGES OK THE STUDY OV NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

Section I. — Of the Pleasures of Science . . .175 
Section II. — Of the Pleasure and Improvement peculiar to 

Natural Theology 187 

Section III Of the Connexion between Natural and Re- 
vealed Religion . . . . . . .199 



PART II. 



NOTES. 



Note I. — Of the Classification of the Sciences 



217 



II. — Of the Psychological Argument from Final 



Causes 



221 



III. — Of the Doctrine of Cause and Effect 



227 



IV. — Of the " Systeme de la Nature," and the Hypo- 
thesis of Materialism • 
V. — Of Mr. Hume's Sceptical Writings, and the Ar- 



232 



gument respecting Providence 



248 



CONTENTS. VU 

Page 

Note VI. — Of the Ancient Doctrine respecting Mind . 263 
VII. — Of the Ancient Doctrine respecting ihe De-ity and 

Matter 266 

VIII. — Of the ancient Doctrine of the Immortality of 

the Soul 273 

IX. — Of Bishop Warburton's Theory concerning the 

Ancient Doctrine of a Future State . . 281 
X.— Of Lord Bacon's Character . . . .296 



ERRATUM. 
Page 76, line 13, for " Meclaurin," " Koenig." 



A DISCOURSE 

OF 

NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



TO 

JOHN CHARLES EARL SPENCER. 

The composition of this Discourse was undertaken in 
consequence of an observation which I had often made, 
that scientific men were apt to regard the study of 
Natural Religion as little connected with philosophical 
pursuits. Many of the persons to whom I allude were 
men of religious habits of thinking; others were free 
from any disposition towards scepticism, rather because 
they had not much discussed the subject, than because 
they had formed fixed opinions upon it after inquiry. 
But the bulk of them relied little upon Natural Theo- 
logy, which they seemed to regard as a speculation 
built rather on fancy than on argument ; or, at any 
rate, as a kind of knowledge quite different from 
either physical or moral science. It therefore ap- 
peared to me desirable to define, more precisely than 

B 



2 



A. DISCOURSE OF 



had yet been done, the place and the claims of 
Natural Theology among the various branches of 
human knowledge. 

About the same time our Society,* as you may 
recollect, was strongly urged to publish an edition 
of Dr. Paley's popular work, with copious and scien- 
tific illustrations. We both favoured this plan ; but 
some of our colleagues justly apprehended that the 
adoption of it might open the door to the introduction 
of religious controversy among us, against our funda- 
mental principles ; and the scheme was abandoned. 
I regarded it, however, as expedient to carry this 
plan into execution by individual exertion; and our 
worthy and accomplished colleague, Sir C. Bell — whose 
admirable treatise on Animal Mechanics pointed him 
out as the fellow-labourer I should most desire — for- 
tunately agreed to share the work of the illustrations. 
In these we have made a very considerable progress ; 
and I now inscribe this publication, but particularly 
the Preliminary Discourse, to you. It was, with the 
exception of the Third Section of Part I., and the 
greater portion of the Notes, written at the end of 
1830, in 1831, and the latter part of 1833, and a 
* For the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



3 



portion was added in the autumn of 1 834. In those- 
days I held the Great Seal of this kingdom ; and it 
was impossible to finish the work while many cares 
of another kind pressed upon me. But the first leisure 
that could he obtained was devoted to this object, 
and to a careful revision of what had been written 
in a season less auspicious for such speculations. 

I inscribe the fruits of those studies to you, not 
merely as a token of ancient friendship — for that you 
do not require ; nor because I always have found 
you, whether in posssession or in resistance of power, a 
fellow-labourer to maintain our common principles, alike 
firm, faithful, disinterested — for your known public 
character wants no testimony from me ; nor yet 
because a work on such a subject needs the patronage 
of a great name — for it would be affectation in me to 
pretend any such motive ; but because you have de- 
voted much of your time to such inquiries — are beyond 
most men sensible of their importance — concur gene- 
rally in the opinions which I profess to maintain — and 
had even formed the design of giving to the world your 
thoughts upon the subject, as I hope and trust you now 
will be moved to do all the more for the present address. 
In this view, your authority will prove of great value to 

b 2 



4 



A DISCOURSE OF 



the cause of truth, however superfluous the patronage 
of even your name might be to recommend the most 
important of all studies. 

Had our lamented friend Romilly lived, you are aware 
that not even these considerations would have made me 
address any one but him, with whom I had oftentimes 
speculated upon this ground. Both of us have been 
visited with the most severe afflictions, of a far nearer 
and more lasting kind than even his removal, and we are 
now left with few things to care for ; yet ever since the 
time I followed him to the grave, I question if either 
of us has read, without meditating upon the irreparable 
loss we and "all men then sustained, the words of the 
ancient philosopher best imbued with religious opi- 
nions — " Profrciscar enim non ad eos solum viros de 
quibus ante dixi, sed etiam ad Catonem meum, quo 
nemo vir melior natus est, nemo pietate praestantior ; 
cujus a me corpus crematum est, animus vero non me 
deserens sed respectans, in eaprofecto loca discessit quo 
mihi ipsi cernebat esse veniendum; quern ego meum 
casum fortiter ferre visus sum, non quod aequo animo 
ferrem ; sed me ipse consolabar, existimans, non longin- 
quum inter nos digressum et discessum fore."* 
* De Senect. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



5 



INTRODUCTION. 



ARRANGEMENT OF SUBJECTS AND EXPLANATION 
OF TERMS. 

The words Theology and Religion are often used 
as synonymous. Thus Natural Theology and 
Natural Religion are by many confounded toge- 
ther. But the more accurate use of the words is 
that which makes Theology the science, and Reli- 
gion its subject; and in this manner are they 
distinguished when we speak of a " professor of 
theology," and a c( sense of religion." 

There is, however, as regards Natural TJieology, 
a more limited use of the word, which confines it 
to the knowledge and attributes of the Deity, 
and regards the speculation concerning his will, 
and our own hopes from and duties towards him, 
as another branch of the science, termed Natural 
Religion, in contradistinction to the former. Dr. 
Paley hardly touches on this latter branch in his 
book, there being only about one -sixtieth part 



6 A DISCOURSE OF 

devoted to it, and that incidentally in treating of 
the attributes. Indeed, though in the dedication 
he uses the word Religion as synonymous with 
Theology, the title and the arrangement of his 
discourse show that he generally employed the 
term Natural Theology in its restricted sense. 
Bishop Butler, on the other hand, seems to 
have used Natural Religion in a sense equally 
restricted, but certainly little warranted by cus- 
tom ; for that portion of his work which treats of 
Natural Religion is confined to a future state and 
the moral government of God, as if he either held 
Natural Religion and Natural Theology to be two 
branches of one subject, or Natural Religion to 
be a branch of Natural Theology. The older 
writers, Clarke, Bentley, Derham, seem to have 
sometimes used the words indifferently, but never 
to have regarded Natural Religion in the re- 
stricted acceptation. The ancients generally used 
Religion in a qualified sense, either as connected 
with an obligation, or as synonymous with super- 
stition. 

This Discourse is not a treatise of Natural 
Theology : it has not for its design an exposition 
of the doctrines whereof Natural Theology con- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



7 



sists. But its object is, first, to explain the na- 
ture of the evidence upon which it rests — to show- 
that it is a science, the truths of which are disco- 
vered by induction, like the truths of Natural and 
Moral Philosophy — that it is a branch of science 
partaking of the nature of each of those great 
divisions of human knowledge, and not merely 
closely allied to them both. Secondly, the object 
of the Discourse is to explain the advantages 
attending this study. The work, therefore, is a 
Logical one. 

We have commented upon the use of the terms 
Theology and Religion. As it is highly desirable 
to keep scientific language precise, and always to 
use the same terms in the same sense, we shall 
now further observe upon the word "moral" in 
relation to science or faculties. It is sometimes 
used to denote the whole of our mental faculties, 
and in opposition to natural and physical, as when 
we speak of " moral science," " moral truths" 
" moral philosophy" But it is also used in con- 
tradistinction to "intellectual" or " mental" and 
in connexion with or in reference to obligation; 
and then it relates to rights and duties, and is 
synonymous with ethical. It seems advisable to 



8 



A DISCOURSE OF 



use it always in this sense, and to employ the 
words spiritual and mental in opposition to na- 
tural and material ; and psychological, as applied 
to the science of mind, in opposition to physical. 
Again, a distinction is sometimes made between 
the intellectual and moral powers or faculties — 
the former being directly those of the under- 
standing, the latter those of the will, or, as they 
are often called, the "active powers,'' — that is, 
the passions and feelings. It seems better to 
use the word active for this purpose as opposed 
to intellectual. Thus we shall have these general 
terms, spiritual or mental, as applied to the im- 
material part of the creation, and psychological, as 
applied to the science which treats of it. We 
shall next have a subdivision of the mental facul- 
ties into intellectual and active; both form the 
subjects of psychological science. Moral science, 
in its restricted sense, and properly so called, 
will then denote that branch which treats of du- 
ties, and of what is implied in those duties, their 
correlative rights ; it will, in short, be ethical 
science. 

Thus the science of mind — say. Metaphysical 
science — may be said to consist of two great 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



9 



brandies, the one of which treats of existences, 
the other of duties. The one accordingly has been 
termed, with great accuracy, Ontology, speaking 
of that which is ; the other, Deontology, speaking 
of that which ought to be. The former, however, 
comprehends properly all physical as well as men- 
tal science. The division which appears upon the 
whole most convenient is this : That metaphysical 
science, as contradistinguished from physical, is 
either psychological, which treats of the faculties 
both intellectual and active, but treats of exist- 
ences only ; or moral, which treats of rights and 
duties, and is distinguishable from psychologi- 
cal, though plainly connected with it nearly as 
corollaries are with the propositions from whence 
they flow. Then physical truths, in one respect, 
come under the same head with the first branch of 
metaphysical truths. Physical as well as psycho- 
logical science treats of existences, while moral 
science alone treats of duties. 

According to a like arrangement, Natural Theo- 
logy consists of two great branches, one resem- 
bling Ontology, the other analogous to Deontology. 
The former comprehends the discovery of the 
existence and attributes of a Creator, by investi- 

b 3 



10 



A DISCOURSE OF 



gating- the evidences of design in the works of the 
creation, material as well as spiritual. The latter 
relates to the discovery of his will and probable 
intentions with regard to his creatures, their con- 
duct, and their duty. The former resembles the 
physical and psychological sciences, and treats of 
the evidences of design, wisdom, and goodness 
exhibited both in the natural and spiritual worlds. 
The latter resembles rather the department of 
moral science, as distinguished from both physical 
and psychological. We may thus consider the 
science of Natural Theology as consisting, like 
all inductive science, of three compartments, Na- 
tural, Mental, and Moral ; or, taking the Greek 
terms, Physical, Psychological, and Ethical. 

This classification is convenient, and its grounds 
are very fit to be premised — at the same time 
that we must admit the question to be one only 
of classification and technology. Having so stated 
the divisions of the subject and the meaning of 
the terms used in relation to those divisions, I 
shall assume this arrangement and adhere to this 
phraseology, as convenient, though far from repre- 
senting it to be the best. In such discussions it 
is far more important to employ one uniform and 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



11 



previously explained language or arrangement, 
than to be very curious in adopting the best. 
No classification, indeed, can, from the nature of 
things, be rigorously exact. All the branches of 
science, even of natural philosophy, much more of 
metaphysical, run into each other, and are sepa- 
rated by gradations rather than by lines of de- 
marcation. Nor could any scientific language we 
possess help breaking down under us in an 
attempt to maintain a perfectly logical arrange- 
ment.* 

ANALYSIS OF THE WORK. 

The order of this Discourse is thus set out : 

The First Part treats of the nature of the 
subject, and the kind of evidence upon which 
Natural Theology rests. 

The Second Part treats of the advantages 
derived from the study of the science. 

The former Part is divided into seven sections. 
The first is introductory, and treats of the kind of 
evidence by which the truths of Physical and Psy- 
chological science are investigated, and shows that 

* Note I. 



12 



A DISCOURSE OF 



there is as great an appearance of diversity be- 
tween the manner in which we arrive at the know- 
ledge of different truths in those inductive sciences, 
as there is between the nature of any such induc- 
tive investigation and the proofs of the ontological 
branches of Natural Theology. But that diversity 
is proved to be only apparent ; and hence it is in- 
ferred, that the supposed difference of the proofs 
of Natural Theology may also be only apparent. 

The second section continues the application 
of this argument to the Physical branch of 
Natural Theology, and shows further proofs 
that the first branch of Natural Theology is as 
much an inductive science as Physics or Na- 
tural Philosophy. The first section compared 
the ontological branches of Natural Theology 
with all inductive science, physical as well as 
psychological. The second compares the physical 
branch of Natural Theology with physical science 
only. 

The third section compares the psj^chological 
branch of Natural Theology with psychological 
science, and shows that both rest alike upon 
induction. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



13 



The fourth section shows that the argumentum 
a priori is unsound in a great degree — that it is 
insufficient for the purpose to which it is applied — 
that it serves only to a limited extent — and that 
to this extent it is in reality not distinguishable 
from induction, or the argumentum a posteriori. 

The fifth section treats of the second or Moral, 
the deontological branch of Natural Theology, 
and shows that it rests upon the same kind of 
evidence with moral science, and is, strictly speak- 
ing, as much a branch of inductive knowledge. 

The sixth section examines the doctrines of 
Lord Bacon respecting Final Causes, and shows 
that he was not adverse to the speculation when 
kept within due bounds. 

The seventh section examines the true nature of 
inductive analysis and synthesis, and shows some 
important errors prevailing on this subject. 

In treating of the proofs of design displayed by 
the mental constitution of living creatures, and in 
treating of the Soul's Immortality, it becomes 
necessary to enter more at large into the sub- 
ject, and therefore the third and the fifth sections 
are not, like the others, mere logical discourses in 



14 



A DISCOURSE OF 



which the doctrines of Natural Theology are as- 
sumed rather than explained. The subjects of 
those two sections have not been sufficiently 
handled in professed treatises upon Natural Theo- 
logy, which have been almost wholly confined to 
the first branch of the science — the proofs of the 
Deity's existence and attributes — and to the phy- 
sical portion of that branch. This defect I have 
endeavoured to supply. 



The Second Part, which treats of the advantages 
of the study, consists of three sections. 

The first shows that the precise kind of plea- 
sure derived from the investigation of scientific 
truths is derived from this study. 

The second treats of the pleasures which are 
peculiar to this study. 

The third treats of the connexion of Natural 
with Revealed Religion. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



15 



PART THE FIRST. 

NATURE OF THE SCIENCE, AND OF ITS EVIDENCES. 



SECTION I. 

INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE METHOD OF INVESTI- 
GATION PURSUED IN THE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHO- 
LOGICAL SCIENCES. 

The faculties, as well as the feelings of the human 
mind, its intellectual, as well as its active powers, 
are employed without any intermission, although 
with varying degrees of exertion, in one of two 
ways — either in regard to some object imme- 
diately connected with the supply of our wants, 
or in regard to subjects of mere contemplation. 
The first class of exertions relates to all the 
objects of necessity, of comfort, or of physical 
enjoyment : in the pursuit of these, the powers 
of the understanding, or the passions, or both 
together, are with nearly the whole of mankind 
employed during the greater portion of their 
existence, and with the bulk of mankind, during 



16 



A DISCOURSE OF 



almost the whole of their existence. The other 
class of mental exertions, which engrosses but a 
very few men for the greater part of their lives, 
and occupies the majority only occasionally and 
at considerable intervals, comprehends within its 
scope all the subjects of meditation and reflection — 
of merely speculative reasoning and discussion : it 
is composed of all the efforts which our under- 
standing can make, and all the desires which we 
can feel upon subjects of mere science or taste, 
matters which begin and end in intellectual or 
moral gratification. 

It is unquestionably true that these two grand 
branches of exertion have an intimate connexion 
with each other. The pursuits of science lend 
constant assistance to those of active life ; and 
the practical exercise of the mental powers con- 
stantly furthers the progress of science merely 
speculative. But the two provinces are never- 
theless perfectly distinguishable, and ought not 
to be confounded. The corollary from a scientific 
discovery may be the improvement of a very ordi- 
nary machine or a common working tool ; yet the 
establishment of the speculative truth may have 
been the primary object of the philosopher who 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



17 



discovered it ; and to learn that truth is the im- 
mediate purpose of him who studies the philo- 
sopher's system. So, the better regulation of the 
affections or the more entire control of the passions 
may be the result of an acquaintance with our men- 
tal constitution ; but the object of him who studies 
the laws of mind is merely to become acquainted 
with the spiritual part of our nature. In like 
manner, it is very possible that the knowledge of 
a scientific truth may force itself upon one whose 
faculties or feelings are primarily engaged in 
some active exertion. Some physical law, or some 
psychological truth, may be discovered by one only- 
intent upon supplying a physical want, or obtaining 
a mental enjoyment. But here, as in the former 
case, the scientific or speculative object is inci- 
dental to the main pursuit : the matter of con- 
templation is the corollary, the matter of action 
the proposition. 

The merely contemplative pursuits, which thus 
form one of the great branches of mental exertion, 
seem again to be divisible into two classes, by a line 
that, to a careless observer, appears sufficiently 
defined. The objects of our inquiry and meditation 
appear to be either those things in the physical 



18 



A DISCOURSE OF 



and spiritual worlds, with which we are conversant 
through our senses, or by means of our internal 
consciousness ; or those things with which we are 
made acquainted only by reasoning — by the evi- 
dence of things unseen and unfelt. We either dis- 
cuss the properties and relations of actually per- 
ceived and conceived beings, physical and mental — 
that is, the objects of sense and of consciousness — 
or we carry our inquiries beyond those things which 
we see and feel ; we investigate the origin of them 
and of ourselves ; we rise from the contemplation 
of nature and of the spirit within us, to the first 
cause of all, both of body and of mind. To the 
one class of speculation belong the inquiries how 
matter and mind are framed, and how they act ; 
to the other class belong the inquiries whence 
they proceed, and whither they tend. In a 
word, the structure and relations of the universe 
form the subject of the one branch of philosophy, 
and may be termed Human Science ; the origin 
and destiny of the universe forms the subject of 
its other branch, and is termed Divine Science, or 
Theology. 

It is not to be denied that this classification 
may be convenient ; indeed, it rests upon some 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



19 



real foundation, for the speculations which com- 
pose these two branches have certain common dif- 
ferences and common resemblances. Yet it is 
equally certain, that nothing but an imperfect 
knowledge of the subject, or a superficial atten- 
tion to it, can permit us to think that there is any 
well-defined boundary which separates the two 
kinds of philosophy ; that the methods of investi- 
gation are different in each ; and that the kind of 
evidence varies by which the truths of the one and 
of the other class are demonstrated. The error is 
far more extensive in its consequences than a mere 
inaccuracy of classification, for it materially im- 
pairs the force of the proofs upon which Natural 
Theology rests. The proposition which we would 
place in its stead is, That this science is strictly a 
branch of inductive philosophy, formed and sup- 
ported by the same kind of reasoning upon 
which the Physical and Psychological sciences are 
founded. This important point will be established 
by a fuller explanation ; and we shall best set 
about this task by shewing, in the first place, that 
the same apparent diversity of evidence exists in 
the different subjects or departments of the branch 
which we have termed Human science. It seems 



20 



A DISCOURSE OF 



to exist there on a superficial examination : if, 
a closer scrutiny puts that appearance to flight 
the inference is legitimate, that there may be 
no better ground for admitting an essential dif- 
ference between the foundations of Human Science 
and Divine. 

The careless inquirer into physical truth would 
certainly think he had seized on a sound princi- 
ple of classification, if he should divide the objectt 
with which philosophy, Natural and Mental, is con- 
versant, into two classes — those objects of which 
we know the existence by our senses or our con- 
sciousness ; that is, external objects which we see, 
touch, taste, and smell, internal ideas which we 
conceive or remember, or emotions which we feel — 
and those objects of which we only know the ex- 
istence by a process of reasoning, founded upon 
something originally presented by the senses or 
by consciousness. This superficial reasoner would 
range under the first of these heads the members of 
the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ; the 
heavenly bodies ; the mind — for we are supposing 
him to be so far capable of reflection, as to know 
that the proof of the mind's separate existence is 
at the least, as short, plain, and direct, as that 



NATURAL THOLOGY. 



21 



of the body, or of external objects. Under the 
second head he would range generally whatever 
objects of examination are not directly perceived 
by the senses, or felt by consciousness. 

But a moment's reflection will shew both how 
very short a way this classification would carry our 
inaccurate logician, and how entirely his principle 
fails to support him even during that little part 
of the journey. Thus the examination of cer- 
tain visible objects and appearances enables us 
to ascertain the laws of light and of vision. 
Our senses teach us that colours differ, and 
that their mixture forms other hues; that their 
absence is black, their combination in certain 
proportions white. We are in the same way 
enabled to understand that the organ of vision 
performs its functions by a natural apparatus re- 
sembling, though far surpassing, certain instru- 
ments of our own constructing, and that there- 
fore it works on the same principles. But that 
light, which can be perceived directly by none 
of our senses, exists, as a separate body, we only 
infer by a process of reasoning from things which 
our senses do perceive. So we are acquainted 
with the effects of heat ; we know that it extends 



22 



A DISCOURSE OF 



the dimensions of whatever matter it penetrates ; 
we feel its effects upon our own nerves when sub- 
jected to its operation ; and we see its effects in 
augmenting, liquefying, and decomposing other 
bodies ; but its existence as a separate substance 
we do not know, except by reasoning and by 
analogy. Again, to which of the two classes must 
we refer the air ? Its existence is not made known 
by the sight, the smell, the taste ; but is it by the 
touch ? Assuredly a stream of it blown upon the 
nerves of touch produces a certain effect ; but to 
infer from thence the existence of a rare, light, 
invisible, and impalpable fluid, is clearly an ope- 
ration of reasoning, as much as that which 
enables us to infer the existence of light or heat 
from their perceptible effects. But furthermore, 
we are accustomed to speak of seeing motion ; and 
the reasoner whom we are supposing would cer- 
tainly class the phenomena of mechanics, and pos- 
sibly of dynamics generally, including astronomy, 
under his first head, of things known immediately 
by the senses. Yet assuredly nothing can be 
more certain than that the knowledge of motion 
is a deduction of reasoning, not a perception of 
sense ; it is derived from the comparison of two 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



23 



positions ; the idea of a change of place is the 
result of that comparison attained by a short 
process of reasoning ; and the estimate of velocity 
is the result of another process of reasoning and 
of recollection. Thus, then, there is at once ex- 
cluded from the first class almost the whole range 
of natural philosophy. But are we quite sure 
that anything remains which when severely ex- 
amined will stand the test ? Let us attend a 
little more closely to the things which we have 
passed over hastily, as if admitting that they 
belonged to the first class. 

It is said that we do not see light, and we cer- 
tainly can know its existence directly by no other 
sense but that of sight, but that we see objects 
variously illuminated, and therefore that the exist- 
ence of light is an inference of reason, and the di- 
versity of colour an object of sense. But the very 
idea of diversity implies reasoning, for it is the 
result of a comparison, and when we affirm that 
white light is composed of the seven primary co- 
lours in certain proportions, we state a proposition 
which is the result of much reasoning — reasoning, 
it is true, founded upon sensations or impressions 
upon the senses ; but not less founded upon such 



24 



A DISCOURSE OF 



sensations is the reasoning which makes us believe 
in the existence of a body called light. The 
same may be said of heat, and the phenomena of 
heated bodies. The existence of heat is an in- 
ference from certain phenomena, that is, certain 
effects produced on our external senses by certain 
bodies or certain changes which those senses un- 
dergo in the neighbourhood of those bodies \ but 
it is not more an inference of reason than the 
proposition that heat extends or liquefies bodies, 
for that is merely a conclusion drawn from com- 
paring our sensations occasioned by the external 
objects placed in varying circumstances. 

But can we say that there is no process of 
reasoning even in the simplest case which we 
have supposed our reasoner to put — the existence 
of the three kingdoms, of nature, of the heavenly 
bodies, of the mind ? It is certain that there is in 
every one of these cases a process of reasoning. 
A certain sensation is excited in the mind through 
the sense of vision ; it is an inference of reason 
that this must have been excited by something, 
or must have had a cause. That the cause must 
have been external, may possibly be allowed to be 
another inference which reason could make un- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



25 



aided by the evidence of any other sense. But 
to discover that the cause was at any the least 
distance from the organ of vision, clearly required 
a new process of reasoning, considerable expe- 
rience, and the indications of other senses ; for 
the young man whom Mr. Cheselden couched for 
a cataract at first believed that every thing he 
saw touched his eye. Experience and reasoning, 
therefore, are required to teach us the existence 
of external objects; and all that relates to their 
relations of size, colour, motion, habits, in a word, 
the whole philosophy of them, must of course be 
the result of still longer and more complicated 
processes of reasoning. So of the existence of 
the mind : although undoubtedly the process of 
reasoning is here the shortest of all, and the least 
liable to deception, yet so connected are all its 
phenomena with those of the body, that it re- 
quires a process of abstraction alien from the 
ordinary habits of most men, to be persuaded that 
we have a more undeniable evidence of its sepa- 
rate existence than we even have of the separate 
existence of the body. 

It thus clearly appears that we have been 
justified in calling the classifier whose case we 

c 



26 



A DISCOURSE OF 



have been supposing, a careless inquirer, a super- 
ficial reasoner, an imperfect logician; that there 
is no real foundation for the distinction which 
we have supposed him to take between the dif- 
ferent objects of scientific investigation ; that the 
evidence upon which our assent to both classes 
of truths reposes is of the same kind, namely, the 
inferences drawn by reasoning from sensations or 
ideas, originally presented by the external senses, 
or by our inward consciousness. 

If, then, the distinction which at first appeared 
solid, is found to be without any warrant in the dif- 
ferent kinds of Human Science, has it any better 
grounds when we apply it to draw the line be- 
tween that branch of philosophy itself, and the 
other which has been termed Divine, or Theology ? 
In other words, is there any real, any specific dif- 
ference between the method of investigation, the 
nature of the evidence, in the two departments of 
speculation ? Although this Preliminary Dis- 
course, and indeed the work itself which it intro- 
duces, and all the illustrations of it, are calcu- 
lated throughout to furnish the answer to the 
question, we shall yet add a few particulars in 
this place, in order to show how precisely the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



27 



same fallacy which we have been exposing, in 
regard to the classification of objects in ordi- 
nary scientific research, gives rise to the more 
general classification or separation of all science 
into two distinct branches, Human and Divine, 
and how erroneous it is to suppose that these 
two branches rest upon different foundations. 



c2 



28 



A DISCOURSE OF 



SECTION II. 



COMPARISON OF THE PHYSICAL BRANCH OF NATURAL 
THEOLOGY WITH PHYSICS. 

The two inquiries — that into the nature and con- 
stitution of the universe, and that into the evi- 
dence of design which it displays — in a word, 
physics and psychology, philosophy whether na- 
tural or mental, and the fundamental branch of 
Natural Theology, — are not only closely allied 
one to the other, but are to a very considerable ex- 
tent identical. The two paths of investigation for 
a great part of the way completely coincide. The 
same induction of facts which leads us to a know- 
ledge of the structure of the eye, and its functions 
in the animal economy, leads us to the knowledge 
of its adaptation to the properties of light. It is 
a truth of physics, in the strictest sense of the 
word, that vision is performed by the eye refract- 
ing light, and making it converge to a focus upon 
the retina ; and that the peculiar combination of 
its lenses, and the different materials they are 
composed of, correct the indistinctness which 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



29 



would otherwise arise from the different refrangi- 
bility of light ; in other words, make the eye an 
achromatic instrument. But if this is not also a 
truth in Natural Theology, it is a position from 
which, by the shortest possible process of reason- 
ing', we arrive at a Theological truth — namely, that 
the instrument so successfully performing a given 
service by means of this curious structure, must 
have been formed with a knowledge of the pro- 
perties of light. The position from which so easy 
a step brings us to this doctrine of Natural Theo- 
logy was gained by strict induction. Upon the 
same evidence which all natural science rests on, 
reposes the knowledge that the eye is an optical 
instrument : this is a truth common to both Phy- 
sics and Theology. Before the days of Sir Isaac 
Newton, men knew that they saw by means of the 
eye, and that the eye was constructed upon opti- 
cal principles ; but the reason of its peculiar con- 
formation they knew not, because they were ig- 
norant of the different refrangibility of light. 
When his discoveries taught this truth, it was 
found to have been acted upon, and consequently 
known, by the Being who created the eye. Still 
our knowledge was imperfect; and it was re- 



30 



A DISCOURSE OF 



served for Mr. Dollond to discover another law 
of nature — the different dispersive powers of dif- 
ferent substances — which enabled him to com- 
pound an object-glass that more effectually cor- 
rected the various refrangibility of the rays. 
It was now observed that this truth also must 
have been known to the maker of the eye ; for 
upon its basis is that instrument, far more 
perfect than the achromatic glass of Dollond, 
framed. These things are truths in both physics 
and theology ; they are truths taught us by the 
self-same process of investigation, and resting 
upon the self- same kind of evidence. 

When we extend our inquiries, and observe the 
varieties of this perfect instrument, we mark the 
adaptation of changes to the diversity of cir- 
cumstances ; and the truths thus learnt are in 
like manner common to Physical and Theological 
science ; that is, to Natural History, or Compa- 
rative Anatomy, and Natural Theology. 

That beautiful instrument, so artistly contrived 
that the most ingenious workman could not 
imagine an improvement of it, becomes still more 
interesting and more wonderful, when we find 
that its conformation is varied with the different 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



31 



necessities of each animal. If the animal prowls 
by night, we see the opening of the pupil, and 
the power of concentration in the eye increased. 
If an amphibious animal has occasionally to dive 
into the water, with the change of the medium 
through which the rays pass, there is an accom- 
modation in the condition of the humours, and 
the eye partakes of the eye both of the quadru- 
ped and the fish. 

So, having contemplated the apparatus for 
protection in the human eye, we find that in the 
lower animals, who want both the accessory means 
of cleaning the eye and the ingenuity to accom- 
plish it by other modes than the eyelids, an addi- 
tional eyelid, a new apparatus, is provided for 
this purpose. 

Again, in fishes, whose eye is washed by the 
element in which they move, all the exterior appa- 
ratus is unnecessary, and is dismissed ; but in the 
crab, and especially in that species which lies in 
mud, the very peculiar and horny prominent eye, 
which everybody must have observed, would be 
quite obscured were it not for a particular provi- 
sion. There is a little brush of hair above the 
eye, against which the eye is occasionally raised 



32 



A DISCOURSE OF 



to wipe off what may adhere to it. The form of 
the eye, the particular mode in which it is moved, 
and, we may say, the coarseness of the instrument 
compared with the parts of the same organ in the 
higher class of animals, make the mechanism of 
eyelids and of lachrymal glands unsuitable. The 
mechanism used for this purpose is discovered by 
observation and reasoning; that it is contrived 
for this purpose is equally a discovery of obser- 
vation and reasoning. Both propositions are 
strictly propositions of physical science. 

The same remarks apply to every part of the 
animal body. The use to which each member is 
subservient, and the manner in which it is enabled 
so to perform its functions as to serve that ap- 
pointed use, is learnt by an induction of the strict- 
est kind. But it is impossible to deny, that what 
induction thus teaches forms the great bulk of all 
Natural Theology. The question which the theo- 
logian always puts upon each discovery of a pur- 
pose manifestly accomplished is this : " Suppose 
I had this operation to perform by mechanical 
means, and were acquainted with the laws regu- 
lating the action of matter, should I attempt it in 
any other way than I here see practised?" If the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



33 



answer is in the negative, the consequence is irre- 
sistible that some power, capable of acting with 
design, and possessing the supposed knowledge, 
employed the means which we see used. But this 
negative answer is the result of reasoning founded 
upon induction, and rests upon the same evidence 
whereon the doctrines of all physical science are 
discovered and believed. And the inference to 
which that negative answer so inevitably leads is a 
truth in Natural Theology ; for it is only another 
way of asserting that design and knowledge are 
evinced in the works and functions of nature. 

It may further illustrate the argument to take 
one or two other examples. When a bird's egg 
is examined, it is found to consist of three parts ; 
the chick, the yolk in which the chick is placed, 
and the white in which the yolk swims. The yolk 
is lighter than the white ; and it is attached to it 
at two points, joined by a line, or rather plane, 
below the centre of gravity of the yolk. From this 
arrangement it must follow that the chick is 
always uppermost, roll the egg how you will ; 
consequently, the chick is always kept nearest to the 
breast or belly of the mother while she is sitting. 
Suppose, then, that any one acquainted with the 



34 



A DISCOURSE OF 



laws of motion had to contrive things so as to secure 
this position for the little speck or sac in question, 
in order to its receiving the necessary heat from 
the hen — could he proceed otherwise than by 
placing it in the lighter liquid, and suspending 
that liquid in the heavier, so that its centre of 
gravity should be above the line or plane of sus- 
pension? Assuredly not; for in no other way 
could his purpose be accomplished. This position 
is attained by a strict induction ; it is supported 
by the same kind of evidence on which all physi- 
cal truths rest. But it leads by a single step to 
another truth in Natural Theology ,; . that the egg 
must have been formed by some hand skilful in 
mechanism, and acting under the knowledge of 
dynamics. 

The forms of the bones and joints, and the 
tendons or cords which play over them, afford a 
variety of instances of the most perfect mechani- 
cal adjustment. Sometimes the power is sacri- 
ficed for rapidity of motion, and sometimes ra- 
pidity is sacrificed for power. Our knee-pan, or 
patella, throws off the tendon which is attached to 
it from the centre of motion, and therefore adds 
to the power of the muscles of the thigh, which 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



35 



enable us to rise or to leap. We have a mecha- 
nism of precisely the same kind in the lesser joints, 
where the bones, answering the purposes of the 
patella, are formed of a diminutive size.* In the 
toes of the ostrich, the material is different, but 
the mechanism is the same. An elastic cushion is 
placed between the tendon and the joint, which, 
whilst it throws off the tendon from the centre of 
motion, and therefore adds to the power of the 
flexor muscle, gives elasticity to the bottom of the 
foot. And we recognise the intention of this when 
we remember that this bird does not fly, but runs 
with great swiftness, and that the whole weight 
rests upon the foot, which has but little rela- 
tive breadth ; these elastic cushions serving in 
some degree the same office as the elastic frog 
of the horse's hoof, or the cushion in the bottom 
of the camel's foot. 

The web-foot of a water-fowl is an inimitable 
paddle ; and all the ingenuity of the present day 
exerted to improve our steam-boats makes no- 
thing to approach it. The flexor tendon of the 
toes of the duck is so directed over the heads of 
the bones of the thigh and leg, that it is made 

* Hence called Sesamoid from Sesamum, a kind of grain. 



36 



A DISCOURSE OF 



tight when the creature bends its leg, and is re- 
laxed when the leg is stretched out. When the 
bird draws its foot up, the toes are drawn together, 
in consequence of the bent position of the bones 
of the leg pressing on the tendon. When, on the 
contrary, it pushes the leg out straight, in making 
the stroke, the tendons are relieved from the pres- 
sure of the heel-bone, and the toes are permitted 
to be fully extended and at the same time ex- 
panded, so that the web between them meets the 
resistance of a large volume of water. 

In another class of birds, those which roost 
upon the branch of a tree, the same mechanism 
answers another purpose. The great length of 
the toes of these birds enables them to grasp the 
branch; yet were they supported by voluntary 
effort alone, and were there no other provision 
made, their grasp would relax in sleep. But, on 
the contrary, we know that they roost on one foot, 
and maintain a firm attitude. Borelli has taken 
pains to explain how this is. The muscle which 
bends the toes lies on the fore part of the thigh, 
and runs over the joint which corresponds with 
our knee-joint; from the fore part its tendon 
passes to the back part of the leg, and over the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



37 



joint equivalent to our heel-bone ; it then splits, 
and extends in the bottom of the foot to the toes. 
The consequence of this singular course of the 
tendon is, that when the mere weight of the bird 
causes these two joints to bend under it, the ten- 
don is stretched, or would be stretched, were it 
not that its divided extremities, inserted into the 
last bones of the toes, draw these toes, so that 
they contract, and grasp the branch on which the 
bird roosts, without any effort whatever on its part. 

These are facts learnt by induction ; the induc- 
tive science of dynamics shows us that such me- 
chanism is calculated to answer the end which, in 
point of fact, is attained. To conclude from 
thence that the mechanist contrived the means 
with the intention of producing this end, and 
with the knowledge of the science, is also strictly 
an inference of induction. 

Examine now, in land animals, the structure of 
the larynx, the upper part of which is so con- 
trived as to keep the windpipe closely shut by 
the valve thrown over its orifice, while the food 
is passing into the stomach, as it were, over a 
drawbridge, and, but for that valve, would fall 
into the lungs. No one can hesitate in ascrib- 



38 



A DISCOURSE OF 



ing this curious mechanism to the intention that 
the same opening of the throat and mouth 
should serve for conveying food to the stomach 
and air to the lungs, without any interference of 
the two operations. But that structure would not 
be sufficient for animals which live in the water, 
and must therefore, while they breathe at the 
surface, carry down their food to devour it below. 
In them accordingly, as in the whale and the por- 
poise, we find the valve is not flat, but promi- 
nent and somewhat conical, rising towards the 
back of the nose, and the continuation of the 
nostril by means of a ring (or sphyncter) muscle 
embraces the top of the windpipe so as to com- 
plete the communication between the lungs and 
the blow-hole, while it cuts off all communication 
between those lungs and the mouth. 

Again, if we examine the structure of a por- 
poise's head, we find its cavities capable of great 
distention, and such that he can fill them at 
pleasure with air or with water, according as he 
would mount, float, or sink. By closing the blow- 
hole, he shuts out the water ; by letting in the 
water, he can sink ; by blowing from the lungs 
against the cavities, he can force out the water 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



39 



and fill the hollows with air, in order to rise. No 
one can doubt that such facts afford direct evidence 
of an apt contrivance directed towards a specific 
object, and adopted by some power thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the laws of hydrostatics, as well as 
perfectly skilful in workmanship. 

To draw an example from a very different 
source, let us observe the structure of the Pla- 
netary System. There is one particular arrange- 
ment which produces a certain effect — namely, 
the stability of the system, — produces it in a 
manner peculiarly adapted for perpetual duration, 
and produces it through the agency of an influ- 
ence quite universal, pervading all space, and 
equally regulating the motions of the smallest 
particles of matter and of its most prodigious 
masses. This arrangement consists in making 
the planets move in orbits more or less elliptical, 
but none differing materially from circles, with 
the sun near the centre, revolving almost in one 
plane of motion, and m oving in the same direction 
■ — those whose eccentricity is the most considerable 
having the smallest masses, and the larger ones 
deviating hardly at all from the circular path. 
The influence of gravitation, which is inseparably 



40 



A DISCOURSE OF 



connected with all matter as far as we know, ex- 
tends over the whole of this system ; so that all 
those bodies which move round the sun — twenty- 
three planets including their satellites, and six or 
seven comets — are continually acted upon each by 
two kinds of force, — the original projection which 
sends them forward, and is accompanied with a 
similar and probably a coeval rotatory motion in 
some of them round their axis, and the attraction 
of each towards every other body, which attraction 
produces three several effects — consolidating the 
mass of each, and, in conjunction with the rotatory 
motion, moulding their forms — retaining each 
planet in its orbit round the sun, and each sa- 
tellite in its orbit round the planet — altering or 
disturbing what would be the motion of each 
round the sun if there were no other bodies 
in the system to attract and disturb. Now 
it is demonstrated by the strictest process of 
mathematical reasoning, that the result of the 
whole of these mutual actions, proceeding from 
the universal influence of gravitation, must neces- 
sarily, in consequence of the peculiar arrangement 
which has been described of the orbits and masses, 
and in consequence of the law by which gravita- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



41 



tion acts, produce a constant alteration in the 
orbit of each body, which alteration goes on for 
thousands of years, very slowly making that orbit 
bulge, as it were, until it reaches a certain shape, 
when the alteration begins to take the opposite 
direction, and for an equal number of years goes 
on constantly, as it were, flattening the orbit, till 
it reaches a certain shape, when it stops, and then 
the bulging again begins ; and that this alternate 
change of bulging and flattening must go on for 
ever by the same law, without ever exceeding on 
either side a certain point. All changes in the 
system are thus periodical, and its perpetual sta- 
bility is completely secured. It is manifest that 
such an arrangement, so conducive to such a pur- 
pose, and so certainly accomplishing that pur- 
pose, could only have been made with the express 
design of attaining such an end — that some power 
exists capable of thus producing such wonderful 
order, so marvellous and wholly admirable a har- 
mony, out of such numberless disturbances — and 
that this power was actuated by the intention of 
producing this effect.* The reasoning upon this 

* Earum autem perennes cursus atque perpetui cum admirabili 
incredibilique constantia, declarant in his vim et mentem esse 
divinam, ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere, is nihil 
omnino sensurus esse videatur. Cicero De Nat. Deo. II. 21. 



42 



A DISCOURSE OP 



subject, I have observed, is purely mathematical; 
but the facts respecting the system on which all 
the reasoning rests are known to us by induction 
alone : consequently the grand truth respecting 
the secular disturbance, or the periodicity of the 
changes in the system — that discovery which 
makes the glory of Lagrange and Laplace, and 
constitutes the triumph of the Integral Calculus, 
whereof it is the fruit, and of the most patient 
course of astronomical observation whereon the 
analysis is grounded — may most justly be classed 
as a truth both of the Mixed Mathematics and 
of Natural Theology — for the theologian only 
adds a single short link to the chain of the 
physical astronomer's demonstration, in order to 
reach the great Artificer from the phenomena of 
his system. 

But let us examine further this matter. The 
position which we reach by a strict process of 
induction, is common to Natural Philosophy and 
Natural Theology — namely, that a given organ 
performs a given function, or a given arrange- 
ment possesses a certain stability, by its adapta- 
tion to mechanical laws. We have said that 
the process of reasoning is short and easy, by 
which we arrive at the doctrine more peculiar 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



43 



to Natural Theology — namely, that some power 
acquainted with and acting upon the knowledge 
of those laws, fashioned the organ with the inten- 
tion of having the function performed, or con- 
structed the system so that it might endure. Is 
not this last process as much one of strict induc- 
tion as the other ? It is plainly only a generalization 
of many partiulcar facts ; a reasoning from things 
known to things unknown ; an inference of a new 
or unknown relation from other relations formerly 
observed and known. If, to take Dr. Paley's ex- 
ample, we pass over a common and strike the foot 
against a stone, we do not stop to ask who placed 
it there ; but if we find that our foot has struck 
on a watch, we at once conclude that some me- 
chanic made it, and that some one dropt it on the 
ground. Why do we draw this inference ? Because 
all our former experience had told us that such 
machinery is the result of human skill and labour, 
and that it nowhere grows wild about, or is found 
in the earth. When w r e see that a certain effect, 
namely, distinct vision, is performed by an achro- 
matic instrument, the eye, why do we infer that 
some one must have made it ? Because we no- 
where and at no time h#ve had any experience of 



44 



A DISCOURSE OF 



any one thing fashioning itself, and indeed cannot 
form to ourselves any distinct idea of what such 
a process as self-creation means ; and further, 
because when we ourselves would produce a simi- 
lar result, we have recourse to like means. Again, 
when we perceive the adaptation of natural objects 
and operations to a perceived end, and from 
thence infer design in the maker of these objects 
and superintender of these operations, why do we 
draw this conclusion? Because we know by ex- 
perience that if we ourselves desired to accomplish 
a similar purpose, we should do so by the like 
adaptation ; we know by experience that this is de- 
sign in us, and that our proceedings are the result 
of such design ; we know that if some of our works 
were seen by others, who neither were aware of 
our having made them, nor of the intention with 
which we made them, they would be right should 
they, from seeing and examining them, both infer 
that we had made them, and conjecture why 
we had made them. The same reasoning, by the 
help of experience, from what we know to what 
we cannot know, is manifestly the foundation of 
the inference, that the members of the body were 
fashioned for certain uses by a maker acquainted 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



45 



with their operations, and willing that those uses 
should be served. 

Let us consider a branch of science which, if 
not wholly of modern introduction, has received 
of late years such vast additions that it may really 
be said to have its rise in our own times — I 
allude to the sublime speculations in Osteology 
prosecuted by Cuvier, Bucldand, and others, in 
its connexion with Zoological and Geological re- 
searches. 

A comparative anatomist, of profound learn- 
ing and marvellous sagacity, has presented to 
him what to common eyes would seem a piece 
of half- decayed bone, found in a wild, in a forest, 
or in a cave. By accurately examining its shape, 
particularly the form of its extremity or ex- 
tremities (if both ends happen to be entire), by 
close inspection of the texture of its surface, and 
by admeasurement of its proportions, he can with 
certainty discover the general form of the animal 
to which it belonged, its size as well as its shape, 
the economy of its viscera, and its general habits. 
Sometimes the investigation in such cases proceeds 
upon chains of reasoning Avhere all the links are 
seen and understood ; where the connexion of the 



46 



A DISCOURSE OF 



parts found with other parts and with habitudes is 
perceived, and the reason understood, — as that the 
animal had a trunk because the neck was short com- 
pared with its height ; or that it ruminated because 
its teeth were imperfect for complete mastication. 
But, frequently, the inquiry is as certain in its re- 
sults, although some links of the chain are con- 
cealed from our view, and the conclusion wears a 
more empirical aspect — as gathering that the ani- 
mal ruminated from observing the print of a 
cloven hoof, or that he had horns from his want- 
ing certain teeth, or that he wanted the collar- 
bone from his having cloven hoofs. Limited ex- 
perience having already shown such connexions 
as facts, more extended experience will assuredly 
one day enable us to comprehend the reason of 
the connexion. 

The discoveries already made in this branch of 
science are truly wonderful, and they proceed 
upon the strictest rules of induction. It is 
shown that animals formerly existed on the 
globe, being unknown varieties of species still 
known ; but it also appears that species existed, 
and even genera, wholly unknown for the last 
five thousand years. These peopled the earth, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



47 



as it was, not before the general deluge, but 
before some convulsion long prior to that event 
had overwhelmed the countries then dry, and 
raised others from the bottom of the sea. In 
these curious inquiries, we are conversant not 
merely with the world before the floods but with 
a world which, before the flood, was covered 
with water, and which, in far earlier ages, had 
been the habitation of birds, and beasts, and 
reptiles. We are carried, as it were, several 
worlds back, and we reach a period when all 
was water, and slime, and mud, and the waste, 
without either man or plants, gave resting place 
to enormous beasts like lions and elephants and 
river-horses, while the water was tenanted by 
lizards, the size of a whale, sixty or seventy 
feet long, and by others with huge eyes having 
shields of solid bone to protect them, and glaring 
from a neck ten feet in length, and the air was 
darkened by flying reptiles covered with scales, 
opening the jaws of the crocodile, and expanding 
wings, armed at the tips with the claws of the 
leopard. 

No less strange, and yet no less proceeding 
from induction, are the discoveries made re- 



48 



A DISCOURSE OF 



specting the former state of the earth ; the man- 
ner in which those animals, whether of known 
or unknown tribes, occupied it; and the period 
when, or, at least, the way, in which they ceased 
to exist. Professor Buckland has demonstrated 
the identity with the hyaena's of the animal's 
habits that cracked the bones which fill some of 
the caves, in order to come at the marrow ; but 
he has also satisfactorily shown that it inhabited 
the neighbourhood, and must have been sud- 
denly exterminated by drowning. His researches 
have been conducted by experiments with living 
animals, as well as by observation upon the fossil 
remains.* 

* The researches both of Cuvier and Buckland, far from 
impugning the testimony to the great fact of a deluge borne 
by the Mosaic writings, rather fortify it ; and bring additiunal 
proofs of the fallacy which, for some time, had led philosophers 
to ascribe a very high antiquity to the world we now live in. 

The extraordinary sagacity of Cuvier is, perhaps, in no instance 
more shown, nor the singular nature of the science better illus- 
trated, than in the correction which it enabled him to give the 
speculation of President Jefferson upon the Megalonyx — an animal 
which the President, from the size of a bone discovered, supposed 
to have existed, four times the size of an ox, and with the 
form and habits of the lion. Cuvier has irrefragably shown, 
by an acute and learned induction, that the animal was a sloth, 
living entirely upon vegetable food, but of enormous size, like 
a rhinoceros, and whose paws could tear up huge trees. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



49 



That this branch of scientific inquiry is singu- 
larly attractive all will allow. Nor will any one 
dispute that its cultivation demands great know- 
ledge and skill. But this is not our chief pur- 
pose in referring to it. There can be as little 
doubt that the investigation, in the strictest sense 
of the term, forms a branch of physical science, 
and that this branch sprang legitimately from 
the grand root of the whole, — induction ; in a word, 
that the process of reasoning employed to inves- 
tigate — the kind of evidence used to demonstrate 
its truths, is the modern analysis or induction 
taught by Bacon and practised by Newton. Now 
wherein, with reference to its nature and foun- 
dations, does it vary from the inquiries and illus- 
trations of Natural Theology ? When from ex- 
amining a few bones, or it may be a single 
fragment of a bone, we infer that, in the wilds 
where we found it, there lived and ranged, some 
thousands of years ago, an animal wholly dif- 
ferent from any we ever saw, and from any of 
which any account, any tradition, written or 
oral, has reached us, nay, from any that ever 
was seen by any person of whose existence we 
ever heard, we assuredly are led to this remote 
conclusion, by a strict and rigorous process of 

D 



50 



A DISCOURSE OF 



reasoning ; but, as certainly, we come through 
that process to the knowledge and belief of 
things unseen, both of us and of all men — things 
respecting which we have not, and cannot have, 
a single particle of evidence, either by sense or 
by testimony. Yet we harbour no doubt of the 
fact ; we go farther, and not only implicitly be- 
lieve the existence of this creature, for which we 
are forced to invent a name, but clothe it with 
attributes, till, reasoning step by step, we come 
at so accurate a notion of its form and habits, 
that we can represent the one, and describe the 
other, with unerring accuracy ; picturing to our- 
selves how it looked, what it fed on, and how it 
continued its kind. 

Now, the question is this : What perceiv- 
able difference is there between the kind of 
investigations we have just been consider- 
ing, and those of Natural Theology — except, 
indeed, that the latter are far more sublime in 
themselves, and incomparably more interesting 
to us ? Where is the logical precision of the 
arrangement, which would draw a broad line of 
demarcation between the two speculations, giving 
to the one the name and the rank of a science, 
and refusing it to the other, and affirming that 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



51 



the one rested upon induction, but not the other ? 
We have, it is true, no experience directly of that 
Great Being's existence in whom we believe as 
our Creator ; nor have we the testimony of any 
man relating such experience of his own. But 
so, neither we, nor any witnesses in any age, 
have ever seen those works of that Being, the 
lost animals that once peopled the earth ; and 
yet the lights of inductive science have conducted 
us to a full knowledge of their nature, as well 
as a perfect belief in their existence. Without 
any evidence from our senses, or from the testi- 
mony of eye-witnesses, we believe in the existence 
and qualities of those animals, because we infer 
by the induction of facts that they once lived, 
and were endowed with a certain nature. This is 
called a doctrine of inductive philosophy. Is it 
less a doctrine of the same philosophy, that the 
eye could not have been made without a know- 
ledge of optics, and as it could not make itself, 
and as no human artist, though possessed of the 
knowledge, has the skill and power to fashion it 
by his handy- work, that there must exist some 
being of knowledge, skill, and power, superior to 
our own, and sufficient to create it ? 

d 2 



52 



A DISCOURSE OF 



SECTION III. 

COMPARISON OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BRANCH OF 
NATURAL THEOLOGY WITH PSYCHOLOGY. 

Hitherto, our argument has rested upon a com- 
parison of the truths of Natural Theology with 
those of Physical Science. But the evidences of 
design presented by the universe are not merely 
those which the material world affords ; the in- 
tellectual system is equally fruitful in proofs of 
an intelligent cause, although these have occupied 
little of the philosopher's attention, and may, 
indeed, be said never to have found a place 
among the speculations of the Natural Theologian. 
Nothing is more remarkable than the care with 
which all the writers upon this subject, at least 
among the moderns, have confined themselves 
to the proofs afforded by the visible and sensible 
works of nature, while the evidence furnished by 
the mind and its operations has been wholly 
neglected.* The celebrated book of Ray on the 
Wonders of the Creation seems to assume that 
the human soul has no separate existence — that 
it forms no part of the created system. Derham 
* Note II. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



53 



has written upon Astro-theology and Physico- 
theology as if the heavens alone proclaimed the 
glory of God, and the earth only showed forth 
his handy-work ; for his only mention of intel- 
lectual nature is in the single chapter of the 
Physico- theology on the soul, in which he is con- 
tent with two observations : one, on the variety of 
man's inclinations, and another, on his inventive 
powers — giving nothing which precisely proves 
design. Dr. Paley, whose work is chiefly taken 
from the writings of Derham, deriving from them 
its whole plan and much of its substance, but 
clothing the harsher statements of his original 
in an attractive and popular style,* had so little 
of scientific habits, so moderate a power of 
generalising, that he never once mentions the 
mind, or any of the intellectual phenomena, nor 
ever appears to consider them as forming a por- 
tion of the works or operations of nature. Thus, 
all these authors view the revolutions of the 

* This observation in nowise diminishes the peculiar merit of 
the style, and also of the homely, but close and logical, manner in 
which the argument is put ; nor does it deny the praise of bringing 
down the facts of former writers, and adapting them to the im- 
proved state of physical science — a merit the more remarkable, 
that Paley wrote his Natural Theology at the close of his life. 



54 



A DISCOURSE OF 



heavenly bodies, the structure of animals, the 
organization of plants, and the various operations 
of the material world which we see carried on 
around us, as indicating the existence of design, 
and leading to a knowledge of the Creator. But 
they pass over in silence, unaccountably enough, 
by far the most singular work of divine wisdom 
and power — the mind itself. Is there any reason 
whatever to draw this line ; to narrow within these 
circles the field of Natural Theology ; to draw from 
the constitution and habits of matter alone the 
proof that one Intelligent Cause formed and sup- 
ports the universe ? Ought we not rather to con- 
sider the phenomena of the mind as more pecu- 
liarly adapted to help this inquiry, and as bearing 
a nearer relation to the Great Intelligence which 
created and which maintains the system ? 

There cannot be a doubt that this extraor- 
dinary omission had its origin in the doubts 
which men are prone to entertain of the mind's 
existence independent of matter. The eminent 
persons above named # were not materialists, that 

" :: Some have thought, unjustly, that the language of Paley 
rather savours of materialism ; but it may be doubted whether he 
was fully impressed with the evidence of mental existence. His 
limited and unexercised powers of abstract discussion, and the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



55 



is to say, if you had asked them the question, 
they would have answered in the negative ; they 
would have gone farther, and asserted their be- 
life in the separate existence of the soul inde- 
pendent of the body. But they never felt this as 
strongly as they were persuaded of the natural 
world's existence. Their habits of thinking led 
them to consider matter as the only certain exist- 
ence — as that which composed the universe — as 
alone forming the subject of our contemplations 
— as furnishing the only materials for our in- 
quiries, whether respecting structure or habits and 
operations. They had no firm, definite, abiding 
precise idea of any other existence respecting 
which they could reason and speculate. They 
saw and they felt external objects ; they could 
examine the lenses of the eye, the valves of the 
veins and arteries, the ligaments and the sockets 
of the joints, the bones and the drum of the ear ; 
but though they now and then made mention of 
the mind, and, when forced to the point, would 
acknowledge a belief in it, they never were fully 
and intimately persuaded of its separate existence. 

natural predilection for what he handled so well — a practical ar- 
gument level to all comprehensions — 'appear not to have given 
him any taste for metaphysical speculations. 



56 



A DISCOURSE OF 



They thought of it and of matter very differently ; 
they gave its structure, and its habits, and its ope- 
rations, no place in their inquiries ; their contem- 
plations never rested upon it with any steadiness, 
and indeed scarcely ever even glanced upon it at all. 
That this is a very great omission, proceeding, 
if not upon mere carelessness, upon a grievous 
fallacy, there can be no doubt whatever. 

The evidence for the existence of mind is to 
the full as complete as that upon which we believe 
in the existence of matter. Indeed it is more 
certain and more irrefragable. The consciousness 
of existence, the perpetual sense that we are 
thinking, and that we are performing the opera- 
tion quite independently of all material objects, 
proves to us the existence of a being different 
from our bodies, with a degree of evidence higher 
than any we can have for the existence of those 
bodies themselves, or of any other part of the ma- 
terial world. It is certain — proved, indeed, to 
demonstration — that many of the perceptions of 
matter which we derive through the senses are 
deceitful, and seem to indicate that which has no 
reality at all. Some inferences which we draw re- 
specting it are confounded with direct sensation or 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



57 



perception, for example, the idea of motion ; other 
ideas, as those of hardness and solidity, are equally 
the result of reasoning, and often mislead. Thus 
we never doubt, on the testimony of our senses, that 
the parts of matter touch — that different bodies 
come in contact with one another, and with our 
organs of sense ; and yet nothing is more certain 
than that there still is some small distance between 
the bodies which we think we perceive to touch. 
Indeed it is barely possible that all the sensations 
and perceptions which we have of the material 
world may be only ideas in our own minds : it is 
barely possible, therefore, that matter should have 
no existence. But that mind — that the sentient 
principle — that the thing or the being which we 
call "''I" and "we," and which thinks, feels, rea- 
sons — should have no existence, is a contradiction 
in terms. Of the two existences, then, that of 
mind as independent of matter is more certain 
than that of matter apart from mind. In a sub- 
sequent branch of this discourse,* we shall have 
occasion to treat again of this question, when the 
constitution of the soul with reference to its future 
existence becomes the subject of discussion. At 

* Sect. V. and Note IV. 

D 3 



58 



A DISCOURSE OF 



present we have only to keep steadily in view the 
undoubted fact, that mind is quite as much an 
integral part of the universe as matter. 

It follows that the constitution and functions of 
the mind are as much the subjects of inductive 
reasoning and investigation, as the structure and 
actions of matter. The mind equally with matter 
is the proper subject of observation, by means of 
consciousness, which enables us to arrest and exa- 
mine our own thoughts : it is even the subject of 
experiment, by the power which we have, through 
the efforts of abstraction and attention, of turning 
those thoughts into courses not natural to them, 
not spontaneous, and watching the results.* Now 
the phenomena of mind, at the knowledge of 
which we arrive by this inductive process, the 
only legitimate intellectual philosophy, afford as 
decisive proofs of design as do the phenomena of 
matter, and they furnish those proofs by the strict 
method of induction. In other words, we study 
the nature and operations of the mind, and gather 
from them evidences of design, by one and the 

* An instance will occur in the Fifth Section of this Part, in 
which experiments upon the course of our thoughts in sleep are 
described. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



59 



same species of reasoning, the induction of facts. 
A few illustrations of these positions may be use- 
ful, because this branch of the science has, as we 
have seen, been unaccountably neglected by phi- 
losophers and theologians. 

First. The structure of the mind, in every way 
in which we can regard it, affords evidences of the 
most skilful contrivance. All that adapts it so 
admirably to the operations which it performs, all 
its faculties, are plainly means working to an 
end. Among the most remarkable of these is 
the power of reasoning, or first comparing ideas 
and drawing conclusions from the comparison, 
and then comparing together those conclusions or 
judgments. In this process, the great instrument 
is attention, as indeed it is the most important of 
all the mental faculties. It is the power by which 
the mind fixes itself upon a subject, and its opera- 
tions are facilitated by many contrivances of na- 
ture, without which the effort would be painful, if 
not impossible — voluntary attention being the 
most difficult of all acts of the understanding. 

Observe, then, in the second place, the helps 
which are provided for the exertion of this faculty. 
Curiosity, or the thirst of knowledge, is one of the 



60 A DISCOURSE OF 

chief of these. This desire renders any new idea 
the source of attraction, and makes the mind al- 
most involuntarily, and with gratification rather 
than pain, bend and apply itself to whatever has 
the quality of novelty to rouse it. But association 
gives additional facilities of the same kind, and 
makes us attend with satisfaction to ideas which 
formerly were present and familiar, and the revival 
of which gives pleasure oftentimes as sensible as 
that of novelty, though of an opposite kind. 
Then, again, habit, in this, as in all other opera- 
tions of our faculties, has the most powerful influ- 
ence, and enables us to undergo intellectual labour 
with ease and comfort. 

Thirdly. Consider the phenomena of memory. 
This important faculty, without which no intellec- 
tual progress whatever could be made, is singu- 
larly adapted to its uses. The tenacity of our 
recollection is in proportion to the attention which 
has been exercised upon the several objects of con- 
templation at the time they were submitted to the 
mind. Hence it follows, that by exerting a more 
vigorous attention, by detaining ideas for some 
time under our view, as it were, while they pass 
through the mind or before it, we cause them to 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



61 



make a deeper impression upon the memory, and 
are thus enabled to recollect those things the 
longest which we most desire to keep in mind. 
Hence, too, whatever facilitates attention, whatever 
excites it, as we sometimes say, helps the memory ; 
so that we recollect those things the longest which 
were most striking at the time. Bat those things 
are, generally speaking, most striking, and most 
excite the attention, which are in themselves most 
important. In proportion, therefore, as anything 
is most useful, or for any reason most desirable to 
be remembered, it is most easily stored up in our 
memoiy. 

We may observe, however, in the fourth place, 
that readiness of memory is almost as useful as 
tenacity — quickness of bringing out as power of 
retention. Habit enables us to tax our recollec- 
tion with surprising facility and certainty ; as any 
one must be aware who has remarked the extra- 
ordinary feats performed by boys trained to learn 
things by heart, and especially to recollect num- 
bers in calculating. From the same force of 
habit avc derive the important power of forming 
artificial or conventional associations between 
ideas — of tacking, as it were, one to the other, in 



62 



A DISCOURSE OF 



order to have them more under our control; and 
hence the relation between arbitrary signs and 
the things signified, and the whole use of lan- 
guage, whether ordinary or algebraical : hence, 
too, the formation of what is called artificial 
memory, and of all the other helps to recol- 
lection. But a help is provided for quickness 
of memory, independent of any habit or train- 
ing, in what may be termed the natural asso- 
ciation of ideas, whereby one thing suggests 
another from various relations of likeness, con- 
trast, contiguity, and so forth. The same associa- 
tion of ideas is of constant use in the exercise of 
the inventive faculty, which mainly depends upon 
it, and which is the great instrument not only in 
works of imagination, but in conducting all pro- 
cesses of original investigation by pure reasoning. 

Fifthly. The effect of habit upon our whole 
intellectual system deserves to be further consi- 
dered, though we have already adverted to it. 
It is a law of our nature that any exertion be- 
comes more easy the more frequently it is re- 
peated. This might have been otherwise : it 
might have been just the contrary, so that each 
successive operation should have been more diffi- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



63 



cult ; and it is needless to dwell upon the slowness 
of our progress, as well as the painfullness of all 
our exertions, say, rather, the impossibility of our 
making any advances in learning, which must 
have been the result of such an intellectual con- 
formation. But the influence of habit upon the 
exercise of all our faculties is valuable beyond 
expression. It is indeed the great means of our 
improvement both intellectual and moral, and it 
furnishes us with the chief, almost the only, power 
we possess of making the different faculties of 
the mind obedient to the will. Whoever has ob- 
served the extraordinary feats performed by cal- 
culators, orators, rhymers, musicians, nay, by artists 
of all descriptions, can want no further proof of 
the power that man derives from the contrivances 
by which habits are formed in all mental exer- 
tions. The performances of the Italian Impromi- 
satori, or makers of poetry off-hand upon any pre- 
sented subject, and in almost any kind of stanza, 
are generally cited as the most surprising efforts 
in this kind. But the power of extempore speaking 
is not less singular, though more frequently dis- 
played, at least in this country. A practised ora- 
tor will declaim in measured and in various pe- 



64 



A DISCOURSE OF 



riods — will weave his discourse into one texture — 
form parenthesis within parenthesis — excite the 
passions, or move to laughter — take a turn in his 
discourse from an accidental interruption, making 
it the topic of his rhetoric for five minutes to 
come, and pursuing in like manner the new illus- 
trations to which it gives rise — mould his diction 
with a view to attain or to shun an epigrammatic 
point, or an alliteration, or a . discord ; and all 
this with so much assured reliance on his own 
powers, and with such perfect ease to himself, 
that he shall even plan the next sentence while 
he is pronouncing off-hand the one he is engaged 
with, adapting each to the other, and shall look 
forward to the topic which is to follow and fit in 
the close of the one he is handling to be its 
introducer ; nor shall any auditor be able to dis- 
cover the least difference between all this and the 
portion of his speech which he has got by heart, 
or tell the transition from the one to the other. 

Sixth. The feelings and the passions with 
which we are moved or agitated are devised for 
purposes apparent enough, and to effect which 
their adaptation is undeniable. That of love 
tends to the continuance of the species — the affec- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



65 



Hons, to the rearing of the young ; and the former 
are fitted to the difference of sex, as the latter 
are to that of age. Generally, there are feelings 
of sympathy excited by distress and by weakness, 
and these beget attachment towards their objects, 
and a disposition to relieve them or to support. 
Both individuals and societies at large gain by 
the effects thence arising of union and connexion, 
and mutual help. So hope, of which the seeds 
are indigenous in all bosoms, and which springs 
up like certain plants in the soil as often as it is 
allowed to repose, encourages all our labours, 
and sustains us in every vicissitude of fortune, as 
well as under all the toils of our being. Fear, 
again, is the teacher of caution, prudence, cir- 
cumspection, and preserves us from danger. 
Even anger, generally so painful, is not without 
its use : for it stimulates to defence, and it often- 
times assuages the pain given to our more tender 
feelings by the harshness, or ingratitude, or injus- 
tice, or treachery of those upon whom our claims 
were the strongest, and whose cruelty or whose 
baseness would enter like steel into the soul, were 
no reaction excited to deaden and to protect it. 
Contempt, or even pity, is calculated to exercise 



66 



A DISCOURSE OF 



the same healing influence.* Then, to go no 
further, curiosity is implanted in all minds to 
a greater or a less degree ; it is proportioned 
to the novelty of objects, and consequently to 
our ignorance, and its immediate effects are to 
fix our attention — to stimulate our apprehensive 
powers — by deepening the impressions of all 
ideas on our minds, to give the memory a hold 
over them — to make all intellectual exertion easy, 
and convert into a pleasure the toil that would 
otherwise be a pain. Can anything be more per- 
fectly contrived as an instrument of instruction, 
and an instrument precisely adapted to the want 
of knowledge, by being more powerful in propor- 
tion to the ignorance in which we are ? Hence 
it is the great means by which, above all in early 
infancy, we are taught every thing most necessary 
for our physical as well as moral existence. In 
riper years it smooths the way for further ac- 
quirements to most men ; to some in whom it is 

* " Atque illi (Grantor et Pansetius) quidem etiam utiliter a 
natura dicebant permotiones istas animis nostris datas, metum 
cavendi causa; misericordiam aegiitudinemque dementi*; ipsam 
iracnndiam fortitudinis quasi cotem esse dicebant." — Acad. 
QucBst. iv. 44. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



67 



strongest, it opens the paths of science ; but in all, 
without any exception, it prevails at the beginning 
of life so powerfully as to make them learn the 
faculties of their own bodies, and the general 
properties of those around them — an amount of 
knowledge which, for its extent and its practical 
usefulness, very far exceeds, though the most 
ignorant possess it, whatever additions the greatest 
philosophers are enabled to build upon it in the 
longest course of the most successful investi- 
gations. 

Nor is it the curiosity natural to us all that 
alone tends to the acquirement of knowledge ; 
the desire of communicating it is a strong pro- 
pensity of our nature, and conduces to the same 
important end. There is a positive pleasure as 
well in teaching others what they knew not before, 
as in learning what we did not know ourselves ; 
and it is undeniable that all this might have been 
differently arranged without a material alteration 
of our intellectual and moral constitution in other 
respects. The propensity might have been, like 
the perverted desires of the miser, to retain what 
we know without communication, as it might have 
been made painful instead of pleasurable to ac- 



68 



A DISCOURSE OF 



quire new ideas, by novelty being rendered re- 
pulsive and not agreeable. The stagnation of 
our faculties, the suspension of mental exertion, 
the obscuration of the intellectual world, would 
have followed as certainly as universal darkness 
would veil the universe on the extinction of the 
sun. 

Thus far we have been considering the uses to 
which the mental faculties and feelings are subser- 
vient, and their admirable adaptation to these ends. 
But view the intellectual world as a whole, and 
surely it is impossible to contemplate without 
amazement the extraordinary spectacle which the 
mind of man displays, and the immense progress 
which it has been able to make in consequence of 
its structure, its capacity, and its propensities, such 
as we have just been describing them. If the 
brightness of the heavenly bodies, the prodigious 
velocity of their motions, their vast distances and 
mighty bulk, fill the imagination with awe, there 
is the same wonder excited by the brilliancy of 
the intellectual powers — the inconceivable swift- 
ness of thought — the boundless range which our 
fancy can take — the vast objects which our reason 
can embrace. That we should have been able to 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



69 



resolve the elements into their more simple con- 
stituents — to analyse the subtle light which fills 
all space — to penetrate from that remote particle 
in the universe, of which we occupy a speck, into 
regions infinitely remote — ascertain the weight of 
bodies at the surface of the most distant worlds — 
investigate the laws that govern their motions, 
or mould their forms — and calculate to a second 
of time the periods of their re-appearance during 
the revolution of centuries, — all this is in the last 
degree amazing, and affords much more food for 
admiration than any of the phenomena of the 
material creation. Then what shall we say of 
that incredible power of generalization which has 
enabled some even to anticipate by ages the dis- 
covery of truths the farthest removed above or- 
dinary apprehension, and the most savouring of 
improbability and fiction — not merely of a Clairaut 
conjecturing the existence of a seventh planet, 
and the position of its orbit, but of a Newton 
learnedly and sagaciously inferring, from the re- 
fraction of light, the inflammable quality of 
the diamond, the composition of apparently the 
simplest of the elements, and the opposite nature 
of the two ingredients, unknown for a century 



70 



A DISCOURSE OF 



after, of which it is composed ? * Yet there is 
something more marvellous still in the processes 
of thought, by which such prodigies have been per- 
formed, and in the force of the mind itself, when it 
acts wholly without external aid, borrowing no- 
thing whatever from matter, and relying on its own 
powers alone. The most abstruse investigations 
of the mathematician are conducted without any 
regard to sensible objects ; and the helps he de- 
rives in his reasonings from material things at 
all, are absolutely insignificant, compared with the 
portion of his work which is altogether of an 
abstract hind — the aid of figures and letters being 
only to facilitate and abridge his labour, and not 
at all essential to his progress. Nay, strictly 
speaking, there are no truths in the whole range 
of the pure mathematics which might not, by pos- 
sibility, have been discovered and systematized 
by one deprived of sight and touch, or immured 
in a dark chamber, without the use of a single 
material object. The instrument of Newton's 

* Further induction may add to the list of these wonderful con- 
jectures, the thin ether, of which he even calculated the density 
and the effects upon planetary motion. Certainly the acceleration 
of Encke's comet does seem to render this by no means improbable. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



71 



most sublime speculations, the calculus which 
he invented, and the astonishing systems 
reared by its means, which have given immor- 
tality to the names of Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, 
all are the creatures of pure abstract thought, and 
all might, by possibility, have existed in their pre- 
sent magnificence and splendour, without owing to 
material agency any help whatever, except such 
as might be necessary for their recording and 
communication. These are, surely, the greatest 
of all the wonders of nature, when justly consi- 
dered, although they speak to the understanding 
and not to the sense. Shall we, then, deny that 
the eye could be made without skill in optics, and 
yet admit that the mind could be fashioned and 
endowed without the most exquisite of all skill, 
or could proceed from any but an intellect of 
infinite power ? 

At first sight, it may be deemed that there is 
an essential difference between the evidence from 
mental and from physical phenomena. It may 
be thought that mind is of a nature more removed 
beyond our power than matter — that over the 
masses of matter man can himself exercise some 
control — that, to a certain degree, he has a plastic 



72 



A DISCOURSE OF 



power — that into some forms he can mould them, 
and can combine into a certain machinery — that 
he can begin and can continue motion, and can 
produce a mechanism by which it may be begun, 
and maintained, and regulated — while mind, it 
may be supposed, is wholly beyond his reach; 
over it he has no grasp ; its existence alone is 
known to him, and the laws by which it is regu- 
lated ; — and thus, it may be said, the great First 
Cause, which alone can call both matter and 
mind into existence, has alone the power of 
modulating intellectual nature. But, when the 
subject is well considered, this difference between 
the two branches of science disappears with all 
the rest. It is admitted, of course, that we 
can no more create matter than we can mind; 
and we can influence mind in a way altogether 
analogous to our power of modulating matter. 
By means of the properties of matter we can form 
instruments, machines, and figures. So, by avail- 
ing ourselves of the properties of mind, we can 
affect the intellectual faculties — exercising them, 
training them, improving them, producing, as it 
were, new forms of the understanding. Nor is 
there a greater difference between the mass of 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



73 



rude iron from which we make steel, and the 
thousands of watch-springs into which that steel 
is cut, or the chronometer which we form of 
this and other masses equally inert — than there 
is between the untutored indocile faculties of a 
rustic, who has grown up to manhood without 
education, and the skill of the artist who invented 
that chronometer, and of the mathematician who 
uses it to trace the motions of the heavenly- 
bodies. 

Although writers on Natural Theology have 
altogether neglected, at least in modern times, 
that branch of the subject at large with which 
we have now been occupied, there is one portion 
of it which has always attracted their attention — 
the Instincts of animals. These are unquestion- 
ably mental faculties, which we discover by ob- 
servation and consciousness, but which are them- 
selves wholly unconnected with any exercise of 
reason. They exhibit, however, the most striking 
proofs of design, for they all tend immediately to 
the preservation or to the comfort of the animals 
endowed with them. The lower animals are pro- 
vided with a far greater variety of instincts, and 
of a more singular kind than man, because they 

E 



74 



A DISCOURSE OF 



have only the most circumscribed range and 
feeblest powers of reason, while to reason man is 
in almost every thing indebted. Yet it would be 
as erroneous to deny that we are endowed with 
any instincts, because so much is accomplished by 
reason, as it would be rash to conclude that other 
animals are wholly destitute of reasoning, because 
they owe so much to instinct. Granting that 
infants learn almost all those animal functions 
which are of a voluntary nature, by an early exer- 
cise of reason, it is plain that instinct alone 
guides them in others which are necessary to con- 
tinue their life, as well as to begin their instruc- 
tion : for example, they suck, and even swallow 
by instinct, and by instinct they grasp what is 
presented to their hands. So, allowing that the 
brutes exercise but very rarely, and in a limited 
extent, the reasoning powers, it seems impossible 
to distinguish from the operations of reason those 
instances of sagacity which some dogs exhibit in 
obeying the directions of their master, and indeed 
generally the docility shown by them and other 
animals ; not to mention the ingenuity of birds in 
breaking hard substances by letting them drop 
from a height, and in bringing the water of a deep 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



75 



pitcher nearer their beaks by throwing in pebbles. 
These are different from the operations of instinct, 
because they are acts which vary with circum- 
stances novel and unexpectedly varying; they 
imply therefore the adaptation of means to an 
end, and the power of varying those means when 
obstacles arise : we can have no evidence of de- 
sign, that is of reason, in other men, which is not 
similar to the proof of reason in animals afforded 
by such facts as these. 

But the operations of pure instinct, by far the 
greater portion of the exertions of brutes, have 
never been supposed by any one to result from 
reasoning, and certainly they do afford the most 
striking proofs of an intelligent cause, as well 
as of a unity of design in the world. The work 
of bees is among the most remarkable of all facts 
in both these respects. The form is in every 
country the same — the proportions accurately 
alike — the size the very same to the fraction 
of a line, go where you will; and the form is 
proved to be that which the most refined analysis 
has enabled mathematicians to discover as of all 
others the best adapted for the purposes of saving 
room, and work, and materials. This discovery 

e2 



76 



A DISCOURSE OF 



was only made about a century ago ; nay, the in- 
strument that enabled us to find it out — the 
fluxional calculus — was unknown half a century 
before that application of its powers. And yet 
the bee had been for thousands of years, in all 
countries, unerringly working according to this 
fixed rule, choosing the same exact angle of 
120 degrees for the inclination of the sides of its 
little room, which every one had for ages known 
to be the best possible angle, but also choosing the 
same exact angles of 110 and 70 degrees, for the 
parallelograms of the roof, which no one had ever 
discovered till the 18th century, when Maclaurin 
solved that most curious problem of maxima and 
minima, the means of investigating which had not 
existed till the century before, when Newton in- 
vented the calculus whereby such problems can now 
be easily worked. It is impossible to conceive any 
thing more striking as a proof of refined skill than 
the creation of such instincts, and it is a skill 
altogether applied to the formation of intellectual 
existence. 

Now, all the inferences drawn from the exami- 
nation which Ave have just gone through of psy- 
chological phenomena are drawn according to the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



77 



strict rules of inductive science. The facts re- 
lating to the velocity of mental operations — to 
the exercise of attention — to its connexion with 
memory — to the helps derived from curiosity and 
from habit — to the association of ideas — to the 
desires, feelings, and passions — and to the 
adjoining provinces of reason and instinct — are 
all discovered by consciousness or by observa- 
tion ; and we even can make experiments upon 
the subject by varying the circumstances in which 
the mental powers are exercised by ourselves and 
others, and marking the results. The facts thus 
collected and compared together we are enabled 
to generalize, and thus to shew that certain effects 
are produced by an agency calculated to produce 
them. Aware that if we desired to produce them, 
and had the power to employ this agency, we 
should resort to it for accomplishing our purpose, 
we infer both that some being exists capable of 
creating this agency, and that he employs it for 
this end. The process of reasoning is not like, 
but identical with, that bv which we infer the 
existence of design in others (than ourselves) with 
whom we have daily intercourse. The kind of 
evidence is not like, but identical with, that by 



78 



A DISCOURSE OF 



which we conduct all the investigations of intel- 
lectual and of natural science. 

Such is the process of reasoning by which we 
infer the existence of design in the natural and 
moral world. To this abstract argument an 
addition of great importance remains to be made. 
The whole reasoning proceeds necessarily upon the 
assumption that there exists a being or thing sepa- 
rate from, and independent of, matter, and con- 
scious of its own existence, which we call mind. For 
the argument is — Had I to accomplish this pur- 
pose, I should have used some such means ;" or, 
4C Had I used these means, I should have thought 
I was accomplishing some such purpose." Per- 
ceiving the adaptation of the means to the end, 
the inference is, that some being has acted as we 
should ourselves act, and with the same views. 
But when we so speak, and so reason, we are all 
the while referring to an intelligent principle or 
existence; we are referring to our mind, and 
not to our bodily frame. The agency which we 
infer from this reasoning is, therefore, a spiritual 
and immaterial agency — the working of something 
like our own mind — an intelligence like our own, 
though incomparably more powerful and more 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



79 



skilful. The being of whom we thus acquire a 
knowledge, and whose operations as well as exist- 
ence we thus deduce from a process of inductive 
reasoning, must be a spirit, and wholly immaterial. 
But his being such is only inferred, because we set 
out with assuming the separate existence of our 
own mind, independently of matter. Without that 
we never could conclude that superior intelligence 
existed or acted. The belief that mind exists is 
essential to the whole argument by which we infer 
that the Deity exists. This belief we have shown 
to be perfectly well grounded, and further occa- 
sions of confirming the truth of it will occur under 
another head of discourse.* But at any rate it 
is the foundation of Natural Theology in all its 
branches ; and upon the scheme of materialism 
no rational, indeed no intelligible, account can be 
given of a first cause, or of the creation or govern- 
ment of the universe, f 

* Sect. V., and Note IV. 

f It is worthy of observation, that not the least allusion is made 
in Dr. Paley's work to the argument here stated, although it is 
the foundation of the whole of Natural Theology. Not only does 
this author leave entirely untouched the argument a priori (as it is 
called), and also all the inductive arguments derived from the phe- 
nomena of mind, but he does not even advert to the argument upon 



80 



A DISCOURSE OF 



The preceding observations have been'directed 
to the inquiries respecting the design exhibited 
in the universe. But the other parts of the first 
great branch of natural theology come strictly 
within the scope of the same reasoning. Thus, 
all the proofs of the Deity's jjersonality, that is, his 
individuality, his unity; all the evidence which 
we have of his works, showing throughout not 
only that they proceeded from design, but that 
the design is of one distinctive kind — that they 
come from the hand not only of an intelligent 
being, but of a being whose intellect is specifically 
peculiar, and always of the same character; all 
these proofs are in the most rigorous sense in- 
ductive. 

which the inference of design must of necessity rest — that design 
which is the whole subject of his book. Nothing can more evince 
his distaste or incapacity for metaphysical researches. He assumes 
the very position which alone sceptics dispute. In combating him 
they would assert that he begged the whole question ; for cer- 
tainly they do not deny, at least in modern times, the fact of adap- 
tation. As to the fundamental doctrine of causation, not the 
least allusion is ever made to it in any of his writings, even in his 
Moral Philosophy. This doctrine is discussed in Note III.* 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



81 



SECTION IV. 

OF THE ARGUMENT A PRIORI. 

Hitherto we have confined our attention to the 
evidences of Natural Religion afforded by the 
phenomena of the universe — what is commonly 
termed the argument a posteriori. But some in- 
genious men, conceiving that the existence and 
attributes of a Deity are discoverable by reasoning 
merely, and without reference to facts, have de- 
vised what they term the argument a priori, of 
which it is necessary now to speak. 

The first thing that strikes us on this subject 
is the consequence which must inevitably follow 
from admitting the possibility of discerning the 
existence of the Deity and his attributes a priori, 
or wholly independent of facts. It would follow 
that this is a necessary, not a contingent truth, 
and that it is not only as impossible for the Deity 
not to exist, as for the whole to be greater than 
the sum of its parts, but that it is equally impos- 
sible for his attributes to be other than the argu- 

e 3 



82 



A DISCOURSE OF 



ment is supposed to prove they are. Thus the 
reasoners in question show, by the argument a 
priori, that he is a being of perfect wisdom, and 
perfect benevolence. Dr. Clarke is as clear of 
this as he is clear that his existence is proved by 
the same argument. Now, first, it is impossible 
that any such truths can be necessary ; for their 
contraries are not things wholly inconceivable, 
inasmuch as there is nothing at all inconceivable 
in the Maker of the universe existing as a being 
of limited power and of mixed goodness, nay of 
malevolence. We never, before all experience, 
could pronounce it mathematically impossible 
that such a being should exist, and should have 
cheated the universe. But next, the facts, when 
we came to examine them, might disprove the 
conclusions drawn a priori. The universe might 
by possibility be so constructed that every con- 
trivance might fail to produce the desired effect — 
the eye might be chromatic and give indistinct 
images — the joints might be so unhinged as to 
impede motion — every smell, as Paley has it, 
might be a stink, and every touch a sting. 
Indeed, we know that, perfect as the frame of 
things actually is, a few apparent exceptions to 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



83 



the general beauty of the system have made many 
disbelieve the perfect power and perfect goodness 
of the Deity, and invent Manichean theories to 
account for the existence of evil. Nothing can 
more clearly show the absurdity of those argu- 
ments by which it is attempted to demonstrate 
the truths of this science as mathematical or 
necessary, and cognizable a priori. 

But, secondly, let us see whether the argument 
in question be really one a priori, or only a very 
imperfect process of induction — an induction from 
a limited number of facts. 

Dr. Clarke is the chief patron of this kind of 
demonstration, as he terms it; and though his 
book contains it more at large, the statement of 
his fundamental argument is perhaps to be found 
most distinctly given in the letters subjoined to 
that celebrated work. The fundamental propo- 
sitions in the discourse itself are, That something 
must have existed from all eternity, and that this 
something must have been a being independent 
and self-existent. In the letters he condenses, 
perhaps explains, certainly illustrates, these posi- 
tions, (see Answers to Letters 3, 4, and 5,) by 
arguing that the existence of space and time (or, 



84 



A DISCOURSE OF 



as he terms it, duration) proves the existence of 
something whereof these are qualities, for they 
are not themselves substances ; he cites the cele- 
brated Scholium Generate of the Principia ; and 
he concludes that the Deity must be the infinite 
being of whom they are qualities. 

But to argue from the existence of space and 
time to the existence of anything else, is assuming 
that those two things have a real being indepen- 
dent of our conceptions of them : for the existence 
of certain ideas in our minds cannot be the founda- 
tion on which to build a conclusion that anything 
external to our minds exists. To infer that 
space and time are qualities of an infinite and 
eternal being is surely assuming the very thing 
to be proved, if a proposition can be said to have 
a distinct meaning at all which predicates space 
and time as qualities of anything. What, for 
example, is time but the succession of ideas, 
and the consciousness and the recollection which 
we have of that succession ? To call it a quality 
is absurd ; as well might we call motion a quality, 
or our ideas of absent things and persons a 
quality. 

Again, if space is to be deemed a quality, and 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



85 



if infinite space be the quality of an infinite being, 
finite space must also be a quality, and must, by 
parity of reason, be the quality of a finite being. 
Of what being? Here is a cube of one foot 
within an exhausted receiver, or a cylinder of 
half an inch diameter and three inches high in 
the Torricellian vacuum. What is the being of 
whom that square and that cylindrical space are 
to be deemed as qualities ? Is distance, that is, 
the supposed movement of a point in a straight 
line ad infinitum, a quality ? It must be so if 
infinite space is. Then of what is it a quality ? 
If infinite space is the quality of an infinite being, 
infinite distance must be the quality of an infinite 
being also. But can it be said to be the quality 
of the same infinite being? Observe that the 
mind can form just as correct an idea of infinite 
distance as of infinite space, or, rather, it can 
form a somewhat more distinct idea. But the 
being to be inferred from this infinite distance 
cannot be exactly the same in kind with that 
to be inferred from space infinite in all direc- 
tions. Again, if infinite distance shows an in- 
finite being of whom it is the quality, finite dis- 
tance must be the quality of a finite being. 



86 



A DISCOURSE OF 



What being? Of what kind of being is the 
distance between two trees or two points a qua- 
lity? There can be no doubt that this argu- 
ment rests either upon the use of words without 
meaning, or it is a disguised form of the old doc- 
trine of the anima mundi, or of the hypothesis 
that the whole universe is a mere emanation of 
the Deity. 

But it deserves to be remarked that this argu- 
ment, which professes to be a priori, and wholly 
independent of all experience, is, strictly speak- 
ing, inductive, and nothing more. We can have 
no idea whatever of space apart from experience. 
The experience of space filled with matter enables 
us, by means of abstraction, to conceive space 
without the matter ; and a further abstraction and 
generalization enable us to conceive infinite space 
by imagining the limits indefinitely removed of a 
particular portion of space. But the foundation 
of the whole reasoning is the experience of cer- 
tain finite portions of space first observed in con- 
nexion with matter. Therefore our ideas of space 
are the result of our experience as to external 
objects. Even if we would fancy figure (which is 
possible) without having seen or touched any 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



87 



objects external to ourselves, still it would be 
the experience of our own ideas that had given 
us this idea. So of time ; it is the succession 
of our ideas, and we have the notion of it from 
consciousness and memory. From hence we form 
an idea of indefinite time or eternal duration. 
But the basis of the whole is the observation 
which we have made upon the actual succession 
of our ideas ; and this is inductive, though the 
process of reasoning be very short. It is as much 
a process of inductive reasoning as that by which 
we arrive at the knowledge of the mind's exist- 
ence. There is, therefore, great inaccuracy in 
denominating the argument in question, were it 
ever so sound, an argument a priori, for it is a 
reasoning founded on experience, and it is to be 
classed with the arguments derived from the ob- 
servation of external objects, the ground of our 
reasoning a posteriori as to matter, or, at the 
utmost, with the information given by conscious- 
ness, the whole ground of our reasoning a pos- 
teriori as to mind. 

When, however, Dr. Clarke has once fixed the 
propositions to which we have been adverting, he 
deduces from them the whole qualities of the 



88 



A DISCOURSE OF 



Deity — those which we learn from experience — and 
thinks he can derive them all from the simple pro- 
positions that lie at the foundation of his argu- 
ment. It is truly astonishing to find so profound 
a thinker, and, generally speaking, so accurate a 
reasoner, actually supposing that he can deduce 
from the proposition, that a self-existent being 
must have existed from all time, this other pro- 
position, that therefore this being must be infi- 
nitely wise (Prop. XI.), and that he (( must of 
necessity be a being of infinite goodness, justice, 
and truth, and all other moral perfections, such 
as become the supreme governor and judge of the 
world." (Prop. XII.) With the general texture 
of this argument we have at present nothing to 
do, further than to show how little it can by 
possibility deserve the name either of an argu- 
ment a priori, or be regarded as the demonstra- 
tion of a necessary truth. For surely, prior to 
all experience, no one could ever know that there 
were such things as either judges or governors ; 
and without the previous idea of a finite or worldly 
ruler and judge, we could never gain any idea of 
an eternal and infinitely just ruler or judge ; and 
equally certain it is that this demonstration, if it 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



9S 



proves the existence of an infinite and eternal 
ruler or judge to be a necessary and not a con- 
tingent truth (which is Dr. Clarke's whole argu- 
ment), would just as strictly prove the existence 
of finite rulers and judges to be a necessary and 
not a contingent truth ; or, in other words, it would 
follow, that the existence of governors and judges 
in the world is a necessary truth, like the equality 
of the three angles in a triangle to two right 
angles, and that it would be a contradiction in 
terms, and so an impossibility, to conceive the 
world existing without governors and judges. 

I believe it may safely be said, that very few 
men have ever formed a distinct apprehension of 
the nature of Dr. Clarke's celebrated argument, 
and that hardly any person has ever been at all 
satisfied with it. The opinion of Dr. Keid is well 
known upon this subject, and it has received the 
full acquiescence of no less an authority than that 
of Mr. Stewart. 

" These," says Dr. Keid, " are the speculations 
of men of superior genius ; but whether they be 
as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be 
the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond 
the limits of human understanding, I am unable 
to determine." 



90 



A DISCOURSE OF 



To this Mr. Stewart adds — " After this candid 
acknowledgment from Dr. Reid, I need not be 
ashamed to confess my own doubts and difficul- 
ties on the same subject.' 1 * 

That the argument a priori has been most 
explicitly handled by Dr. Clarke, and that its 
acceptation rests principally upon his high autho- 
rity, cannot be denied. Nevertheless, other great 
men preceded him in this field ; and besides Sir 
Isaac Newton, whose Scholium Generate is thought 
to have suggested it, the same reasoning is to be 
found in the writings of others of Dr. Clarke's 
predecessors. 

The tenth chapter of Mr. Locke's fourth book 
does not materially differ, in its fundamental 
position, from the " Demonstration of the Being 
and Attributes." The argument is all drawn from 
the truth, assumed as self-evident, " Nothing can 
no more produce any real being than it can be 
equal to two right angles." From this, and the 
knowledge we have of our own existence, it is 
shown to follow, that "from eternity there has 
been something f and again, " that this eternal 
being must have been most powerful and most 

* Philosophy of the Active Powers, i. 334. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



91 



knowing/' and " therefore God." The only dif- 
ference between this argument and Dr. Clarke's 
is, that Mr. Locke states, as one of his proposi- 
tions, our knowledge of our own existence. But 
this difference is only in appearance; for Dr. 
Clarke really has assumed what Mr. Locke has 
more logically made a distinct proposition. Dr. 
Clarke's first proposition, that something must 
have existed from all eternity, is demonstrated by 
showing the absurdity of the supposition that 
" the things which now are were produced out of 
nothing." He therefore assumes the existence 
of those things, while Mr. Locke more strictly 
assumes the existence of ourselves only, and in- 
deed states it as a proposition. The other argu- 
ments of Mr. Locke are more ingenious than 
Dr. Clarke's, and the whole reasoning is more 
rigorous, although he does not give it the name 
of a demonstration, and scarcely can be said to 
treat it as proving the Deity's existence to be a 
necessary truth. Were it to be so considered, 
the objections formerly stated would apply to it. 
Indeed, if Dr. Clarke had stated the different 
steps of his reasoning as distinctly as Mr. Locke* 
he would have perceived it to be inconclusive be- 



92 



A DISCOURSE OF 



yond a very limited extent, and to that extent 
inductive.* 

Dr. Cudworth, in the fifth chapter of his great 
work, j has, in answering the Democritick argu- 
ments, so plainly anticipated Dr. Clarke, that it 
is hardly possible to conceive how the latter 
should have avoided referring to it. J " If space 
be indeed a nature distinct from body, and a 
thing really incorporeal, then will it undeniably 
follow, from this very principle of theirs (the 
Democritists), that there must be incorporeal 
space ; and (this space being supposed by them 
also to be infinite) an infinite incorporeal Deity. 
Because if space be not the extension of body, 
nor an affection thereof, then must it of necessity 
be, either an accident existing alone by itself, 
without a substance, which is impossible ; or else 
the extension or affection of some other incor- 
poreal substance that is infinite." He then sup- 

* See particularly Mr. Locke's proofs of his first position. 
(Hum. Understanding, IV. x. sec. 2.) 

f Intellectual System, Book I., c.v., s. 3, par. 4. The profound 
learning of this unfinished work, and its satisfactory exposition of 
the ancient philosophers, are above all praise. Why are the manu- 
scripts of the author still buried in the British Museum ? 

I Cudworth's book was published in 1G78. The " Demonstra- 
tion" was delivered in 1704-5 at the Boyle Lecture. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



93 



poses a reply (founded on the doctrines of Gas- 
sendi), that space is of a middle nature and 
essence, and proceeds to observe upon it : — 
" Whatsoever is, or hath any kind of entity, doth 
either subsist by itself, or else is an attribute, 
affection, or mode of something that doth subsist 
by itself. For it is certain that there can be no 
mode, accident, or affection of nothing ; and, con- 
sequently, that nothing cannot be extended nor 
mensurable. But if space be neither the exten- 
sion of body, nor yet of substance incorporeal, 
then must it of necessity be the extension of 
nothing, and the affection of nothing, and nothing 
must be measurable by yards and poles. We 
conclude, therefore, that from this very hypo- 
« thesis of the Democritick and Epicurean atheists, 
that space is a nature distinct from body, and 
positively infinite, it follows undeniably that 
there must be some incorporeal substance whose 
affection its extension is ; and because there can 
be nothing infinite but only the Deity, that it is 
the infinite extension of our incorporeal Deity." 
The statement of Dr. Clarke's argument, given 
in his correspondence, is manifestly, if not taken 
from this, at least coincident with it in every im- 



94 



A DISCOURSE OF 



portant respect. Dr. Cudworth, indeed, confines 
his reasoning to the consideration of space and 
immensity, and Dr. Clarke extends his to time 
and eternity also. But of the two portions of 
the argument this has been shown to be the most 
fallacious. 

The arguments of the ancient theists were in 
great part drawn from metaphysical speculations 
some of which resembled the argument a priori* 
But they were pressed by the difficulty of con- 
ceiving the possibility of creation, whether of 
matter or spirit ; and their inaccurate views of 
physical science made them consider this diffi- 
culty as peculiar to the creative act. They were 
thus driven to the hypothesis that matter and 
mind are eternal, and that the creative power of 
the Deity is only plastic. They supposed it easy 
to comprehend how the divine mind should be 
eternal and self- existing, and matter also eternal 
and self-existing. They found no difficulty in 
comprehending how that mind could, by a wish 
or a word, reduce chaos to order, and mould all 
the elements of things into their present form ; 
but how everything could be made out of nothing 

* Notes VI. and VII. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



95 



they could not understand. When rightly consi- 
dered, however, there is no more difficulty in com- 
prehending the one than the other operation — 
the existence of the plastic, than of the creative 
power; or rather, the one is as incomprehensible as 
the other. How the Supreme Being made matter 
out of the void is not easily comprehended. This 
must be admitted ; but is it more easy to conceive 
how the same Being, by his mere will, moved and 
fashioned the primordial atoms of an eternally ex- 
isting chaos into the beauty of the natural world, 
or the regularity of the solar system? In truth, 
these difficulties meet us at every step of the 
argument of Natural Theology, when we would 
penetrate beyond those things, those facts which 
our faculties can easily comprehend; but they 
meet us just as frequently, and are just as hard to 
surmount, in our steps over the field of Natural 
Philosophy. How matter acts on matter — how 
motion is begun, or, when begun, ceases— how 
impact takes place- — what are the conditions and 
hmitations of contact — whether or not matter 
consists of ultimate particles, endowed with oppo- 
site powers of attraction and repulsion, and how 
these act — how one planet acts upon another at 



96 



A DISCOURSE OF 



the distance of a hundred million of miles — or 
how one piece of iron attracts and repels another 
at a distance less than any visible space — all these, 
and a thousand others of the like sort, are ques- 
tions just as easily put, and as hard to answer, as 
how the universe could be made out of nothing, 
or how, out of chaos, order could be made to 
spring. 

In concluding these observations upon the 
argument a priori, I may remark, that although 
it carries us but a very little way, and would be 
unsafe to build upon alone, it is yet of eminent 
use in two particulars. First, it illustrates, if it 
does not indeed prqve, the possibility of an Infi- 
nite Being existing beyond and independent of 
us and of all visible things ; and, secondly, the 
fact of those ideas of immensity and eternity, 
forcing themselves, as Mr. Stewart expresses it, 
upon our belief, seems to furnish an additional 
argument for the existence of an Immense and 
Eternal Being. At least we must admit that 
excellent person's remark to be well-founded, 
that after we have, by the argument a posteriori 
(I should rather say the other parts of the argu- 
ment a posteriori), satisfied ourselves of the exist- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



97 



ence of an intelligent cause, we naturally connect 
with this cause those impressions which we have 
derived from the contemplation of infinite space 
and endless duration, and hence we clothe with 
the attributes of immensity and eternity the awful 
Being whose existence has been proved by a 
more rigorous process of investigation.* 

* Lord Spencer, who has deeply studied these abstruse subjects, 
communicated to me, before he was aware of my opinion, that he 
had arrived at nearly the same conclusion upon the merits of the 
argument a priori. 



F 



98 



A DISCOURSE OF 



SECTION V. 

MORAL OR ETHICAL BRANCH OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

If we now direct our attention to the other great 
branch of Natural Theology, that which we have 
termed the moral or ethical portion, which treats 
of the probable designs of the Deity with respect 
to the future destiny of his creatures, we shall find 
that the same argument applies to the nature of 
its truths, which we have been illustrating in its 
application to the first or ontological branch of 
the science, or that relating to the existence and 
attributes of the Creator, whether proved by phy- 
sical or by psychological reasoning. The second 
branch, like the first, rests upon the same founda- 
tion with all the other inductive sciences, the 
only difference being that the one belongs to the 
inductive science of Natural and Mental, and the 
other to the inductive science of Moral Philo- 
sophy. 

The means which we have of investigating the 
probable designs of the Deity are derived from 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



99 



two sources — the nature of the human mind, and 
the attributes of the Creator. 

To the consideration of these we now proceed ; 
but in discussing; them, and especially the first, 
there is this difference to be marked as distin- 
guishing them from the former branch of Natural 
Theology. They are far less abundant in doc- 
trine ; they have been much less cultivated by 
scientific inquirers ; and the truths ascertained 
in relation to them are fewer in number: in a 
word, our knowledge of the Creator's designs in 
the order of nature is much more limited than 
our acquaintance with his existence and attri- 
butes. But, on the other hand, the identity of 
the evidence with that on which the other inductive 
sciences rest is far more conspicuous in what may 
be termed the psychological part of the second 
branch of Natural Theology than in any portion 
of the first branch, it being much less apparent 
that the inferences drawn from facts in favour of 
the Deity's existence and attributes are of the 
same nature with the ordinary deductions of phy- 
sical science — in other words, that this part of 
Natural Theology is a branch of Natural Philo- 
sophy — than it is that the deductions from the 

f 2 



100 



A DISCOURSE OF 



nature of the mind in favour of its separate and 
future existence are a branch of Metaphysical 
science. 

From this diversity it follows, that, in treating 
this second branch of the subject, there will be 
more necessity for entering at large into the 
subject of the Deity's probable designs in regard 
to the soul, especially those to be inferred from 
its constitution, than we found for entering into 
the evidences of his existence and attributes, 
although there will not be so much labour re- 
quired for proving that this is a branch of in- 
ductive science. 

I. PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF 
THE DEITY'S DESIGNS DRAWN FROM THE NATURE 
OF THE MIND. 

The Immateriality of the Soul is the foundation 
of all the doctrines relating to its Future State. 
If it consists of material parts, or if it consists of 
any modification of matter, or if it is inseparably 
connected with any combination of material ele- 
ments, we have no reason whatever for believing 
that it can survive the existence of the physical 
part of our frame ; on the contrary, its destruction 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



101 



seems to follow as a necessary consequence of the 
dissolution of the body. It is true that the body 
is not destroyed in the sense of being annihilated ; 
but it is equally true that the particular con- 
formation, the particular arrangement of material 
particles with which the soul is supposed to have 
been inseparably connected, or in which it is 
supposed to consist, is gone and destroyed even 
in the sense of annihilation ; for that arrangement 
or conformation has no longer an existence, any 
more than a marble statue can be said to have 
an existence when it is burned into a mass of 
quicklime. Now it is to the particular confor- 
mation and arrangement, and not to the matter 
itself, that the soul is considered as belonging by 
any theory of materialism, there being none of 
the theories of materialists so absurd as to make 
the total mass of the particles themselves, inde- 
pendent of their arrangement, the seat of the 
soul. Therefore, the destruction of that form 
and organization as effectually destroys the soul 
which consists in it, as the beauty or the intel- 
lectual expression of the statue is gone when the 
marble is reduced to lime-dust. 

Happily, however, the doctrines of materialism 



102 



A DISCOURSE OF 



rest upon no solid foundation, either of reason 
or experience. The vague and indistinct form 
of the propositions in which they are conveyed 
affords one strong argument against their truth. 
It is not easy to annex a definite meaning to the 
proposition that mind is inseparably connected 
with a particular arrangement of the particles of 
matter ; it is more difficult to say what they mean 
who call it a modification of matter ; but to con- 
sider it as consisting in a combination of matter, 
as coming into existence the instant that the 
particles of matter assume a given arrangement,, 
appears to be a wholly unintelligible collocation 
of words. 

Let us, however, resort to experience, and in- 
quire what results may be derived from that safe 
guide whom modern philosophers most willingly 
trust, though despised as too humble a helpmate 
by most of the ancient sages. 

We may first of all observe that if a particular 
combination of matter gives birth to what we call 
mind, this is an operation altogether peculiar and 
unexampled. We have no other instance of it ; 
we know of no case in which the combination of 
certain elements produces something quite dif- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



103 



ferent, not only from each of the simple in- 
gredients, but also different from the whole com- 
pound. We can, by mixing an acid and an alkali, 
form a third body, having the qualities of neither, 
and possessing qualities of its own different from 
the properties of each ; but here the third body 
consists of the other two in combination. There 
are not two things — two different existences — the 
neutral salt composed of the acid and the alkali, 
and another thing different from that neutral salt, 
and engendered for the first time by that salt 
coming into existence. So when, by chiselling 
" the marble softened into life grows warm," we 
have the marble new moulded, and endowed with 
the power of agreeably affecting our senses, our 
memory, and our fancy; but it is all the while 
the marble : there is the beautiful and expressive 
marble instead of the amorphous mass, and we 
have not, besides the marble, a new existence 
created by the form which has been given to that 
stone. But the materialists have to maintain 
that, by matter being arranged in a particular 
way, there is produced both the organized body 
and something different from it, and having not 
one of its properties — neither dimensions, nor 



104 



A DISCOURSE OF 



weight, nor colour, nor form. They have to main- 
tain that the chemist who mixed the aqua fortis 
and potash produced both nitre and something 
quite different from all the three, and which began 
to exist the instant that the nitre crystallized ; 
and that the sculptor who fashioned the Apollo, 
not only made the marble into a human figure, 
but called into being something different from 
the marble and the statue, and which exists at 
the same time with both and without one property 
of either. If, therefore, their theory is true, it 
must be admitted to rest upon nothing which 
experience . has ever taught us : it supposes ope- 
rations to be performed and relations to exist of 
which Ave see nothing that bears the least resem- 
blance in anything we know. 

But secondly, the doctrine of the materialists 
in every form which it assumes is contradicted by 
the most plain and certain deductions of expe- 
rience. The evidence which we have of the ex- 
istence of the mind is complete in itself, and 
wholly independent of the qualities or the exist- 
ence of matter. It is not only as strong and 
conclusive as the evidence which makes us believe 
in the existence of matter, but more strong and 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 105 

more conclusive ; the steps of trie demonstration 
are fewer; the truth to which they conduct the 
reason is less remote from the axiom — the in- 
tuitive or self-evident position whence the demon- 
stration springs. We believe that matter exists 
because it makes a certain impression upon our 
senses, that is, because it produces a certain 
change or a certain effect: and we argue, and 
argue justly, that this effect must have a cause, 
though the proof is by no means so clear that 
this cause is something external to ourselves. 
But we know the existence of mind by our con- 
sciousness of or reflection on what passes within 
us, and our own existence as sentient and think- 
ing beings implies the existence of the mind 
which has sense and thought. To know, there- 
fore, that we are, and that we think, implies a 
knowledge of the soul's existence. But this 
knowledge is altogether independent of matter, 
and the subject of it bears no resemblance what- 
ever to matter in any one of its qualities, or 
habits, or modes of action. Nay, we only know 
the existence of matter through the operations 
of the mind: and were we to doubt of the ex- 
istence of either, it would be far more reasonable 

f 3 



106 



A DISCOURSE OF 



to doubt that matter exists than that mind 
exists. The existence and the operations of 
mind, supposing it to exist, will account for all 
the phenomena which matter is supposed to ex- 
hibit. But the existence and action of matter, 
vary it how we may, will never account for one of 
the phenomena of mind. We do not believe 
more firmly in the existence of the sensible objects 
around us when we are well and awake, than we 
do in the reality of those phantoms which the 
imagination conjures up in the hours of sleep, or 
the season of derangement. But no effect pro- 
duced by material agency ever produced a spiri- 
tual existence, or engendered the belief of such 
an existence ; indeed, the thing is almost a con- 
tradiction in terms. That all around us should 
only be the creatures of our fancy, no one can 
affirm to be impossible. But that our mind — 
that which remembers — compares — imagines — 
in a word, that which thinks — that of the exist- 
ence of which we are perpetually conscious — that 
which cannot but exist if we exist — that which 
can make its own operations the subject of its 
own thoughts — that this should have no existence 
is both impossible and indeed a contradiction in 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



107 



terms. We have, therefore, evidence of the strictest 
kind — induction of facts the most precise and 
unerring — to justify the conclusion that the mind 
exists, and is different from and independent of 
matter altogether.* 

Now this proposition not only destroys the 
doctrine of the materialists, but leads to the 
strongest inferences in favour of the mind sur- 
viving the body with which it is connected through 
life. All our experience shows us no one instance 
of annihilation. Matter is perpetually changing — 
never destroyed ; the form and manner of its 
existence is endlessly and ceaselessly varying — 
its existence never terminates. The body decays, 
and is said to perish ; that is, it is resolved into 
its elements, and becomes the material of new 
combinations, animate and inanimate, but not a 
single particle of it is annihilated ; nothing of us 
or around us ever ceases to exist. If the mind 
perishes, or ceases to exist at death, it is the only 
» example of annihilation which we know. 

But, it may be said, why should it not, like the 
body, be changed, or dissipated, or resolved into 
its elements ? The answer is plain : it differs 
from the body in this, that it has no parts ; it 

* See, on the Hypothesis of Materialism, Note IV. 



108 



A DISCOURSE OF 



is absolutely one and simple ; therefore it is 
incapable of resolution or dissolution. These 
words/ and the operations or events they refer to, 
have no application to a simple and immaterial 
existence. 

Indeed, our idea of annihilation is wholly de- 
rived from matter, and what we are wont to call 
destruction means only change of form and reso- 
lution into parts, or combination into new forms. 
But for the example of the changes undergone 
by matter, we should not even have any notion 
of destruction or annihilation. When we come 
to consider the thing itself, we cannot conceive it 
to be possible: we can well imagine a parcel of 
gunpowder or any other combustible substance 
ceasing to exist as such by burning or exploding ; 
but that its whole elements should not con- 
tinue to exist in a different state, and in new 
combinations, appears inconceivable. We can- 
not follow the process so far; we can form no 
conception of any one particle that once is, 
ceasing wholly to be. How then can we form 
any conception of the mind which we now know 
to exist ceasing to be ? It is an idea altogether 
above our comprehension. True, we no longer, 
after the body is dissolved, perceive the mind, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



109 



because we never knew it by the senses ; we only 
were aware of its existence in others by its effects 
upon matter, and had no experience of it uncon- 
nected Avith the body. But it by no means 
follows that it should not exist, merely because 
we have ceased to perceive its effects upon any 
portion of matter. It had connexion with the 
matter which it used to act upon, and by which 
it used to be acted on; when its entire sever- 
ance took place that matter underwent a great 
change, but a change arising from its being of a 
composite nature. The same separation cannot 
have affected the mind in the like manner, because 
its nature is simple and not composite. Our 
ceasing to perceive any effects produced by it on 
any portion of matter, the only means we can 
have of ascertaining its existence, is therefore no 
proof that it does not still exist ; and even if we 
admit that it no longer does produce any effect 
upon any portion of matter, still this will offer no 
proof that it has ceased to exist. Indeed, when 
we speak of its being annihilated we may be said 
to use a word to which no precise meaning can be 
attached by our imaginations. At any rate, it is 
much more difficult to suppose that this annihila- 



110 



A DISCOURSE OF 



tion has taken place, and to conceive in what way 
it is effected, than to suppose that the mind con- 
tinues in some state of separate existence, dis- 
encumbered of the body, and to conceive in what 
manner this separate existence is maintained. 

It may be further observed that the material 
world affords no example of creation, any more 
than of annihilation. Such as it was in point of 
quantity since its existence began, such it still 
is, not a single particle of matter having been 
either added to it or taken from it. Change — 
unceasing change — in all its parts, at every 
instant of time, it is for ever undergoing; but 
though the combinations or relations of these 
parts are unremittingly varying, there has not 
been a single one of them created, or a single one 
destroyed. Of mind, this cannot be said; it is 
called into existence perpetually, before our eyes. 
In one respect this may weaken the argument for 
the continued existence of the soul, because it 
may lead to the conclusion, that as we see mind 
created, so may it be destroyed; while matter, 
which suffers no addition, is liable to no loss. 
Yet the argument seems to gain in another 
direction more force than it loses in this; for 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Ill 



nothing can more strongly illustrate the diversity 
between mind and matter, or more strikingly 
show that the one is independent of the other. 

Again, the mind's independence of matter and 
capacity of existence without it, appears to be 
strongly illustrated by whatever shows the entire 
dissimilarity of its constitution. The inconceivable 
rapidity of its operations is, perhaps, the most 
striking feature of the diversity ; and there is no 
doubt that this rapidity increases in proportion as 
the interference of the senses — that is, the in- 
fluence of the body — is withdrawn. A multitude 
of facts, chiefly drawn from and connected with 
the Phenomena of Dreams, throw a strong light 
upon this subject, and seem to demonstrate the 
possible disconnexion of mind and matter. 

The bodily functions are in part suspended 
during sleep, that is, all those which depend 
upon volition. The senses, however, retain a 
portion of their acuteness; and those of touch* 

* The common classification of the senses which makes the 
touch comprehend the sense of heat and cold, is here adopted ; 
though, certainly, there seems almost as little reason for ranging 
this tinder touch, as for ranging sight, smell, hearing, and taste 
under the same head. 



112 



A DISCOURSE OF 



and hearing, especially, may be affected without 
awakening the sleeper. The consequence of the 
cessation which takes place of all communication 
of ideas through the senses, is that the action of 
the mind, and, above all, of those powers con- 
nected with the imagination, becomes much more 
vigorous and uninterrupted. This is shown in 
two ways — first, by the celerity with which any 
impression upon the senses, strong enough to be 
felt without awaking, is caught up and made 
the oToundwork of a new train of ideas, the mind 
instantly accommodating itself to the suggestions 
of the impression, and making all its thoughts 
chime in with that; and, secondly, by the pro- 
digiously long succession of images that pass 
through the mind, with perfect distinctness and 
liveliness, in an instant of time. 

The facts upon this subject are numerous, and 
of undeniable certainty, because of daily occur- 
rence. Every one knows the effect of a bottle of 
hot water applied during sleep to the soles of the 
feet: you instantly dream of walking over hot 
mould, or ashes, or a stream of lava, or having 
your feet burnt by coming too near the fire. But 
the effect of falling asleep in a stream of cold air, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



113 



as in an open carriage, varies this experiment in a 
very interesting', and, indeed, instructive manner. 
You will,, instantly that the wind begins to blow, 
dream of being upon some exposed point, and 
anxious for shelter, but unable to reach it ; then 
you are on the deck of a ship, suffering from the 
gale — you run behind a sail for shelter, and the 
wind changes, so that it still blows upon you — you 
are driven to the cabin, but the ladder is re- 
moved, or the door locked. Presently you are 
on shore, in a house with all the windows open, 
and endeavour to shut them in vain ; or, seeing 
a smith's forge, you are attracted by the fire, and 
suddenly a hundred bellows play upon it, and 
extinguish it in an instant, but fill the whole 
smithy with their blast, till you are as cold as on 
the road. If you from time to time awake, the 
moment you fall asleep again, the same course of 
dreaming succeeds in the greatest variety of 
changes that can be rung on our thoughts. 

But the rapidity of these changes, and of the 
succession of ideas, cannot be ascertained by this 
experiment : it is most satisfactorily proved by 
another. Let any one who is extremely over- 
powered with drowsiness — as after sitting up all 



114 



A DISCOURSE OF 



night, and sleeping none the next day — lie down, 
and begin to dictate : he will find himself falling 
asleep after uttering a few words, and he will be 
awakened by the person who writes repeating the 
last word, to show he has written the whole ; not 
above five or six seconds may elapse, and the 
sleeper will find it at first quite impossible to 
believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and 
will chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep 
over his work — so great apparently will be the 
length of the dream which he has dreamt, ex- 
tending through half a lifetime. This experi- 
ment is easily tried : again and again the sleeper 
will find his endless dream renewed ; and he will 
always be able to tell in how short a time he must 
have performed it. For suppose eight or ten 
seconds required to write the four or five words 
dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than four 
or five seconds after the effort of pronouncing the 
sentence ; so that, at the utmost, not more than 
four or five seconds can have been spent in sleep. 
But, indeed, the greater probability is, that not 
above a single second can have been so passed ; for 
a writer will easily finish two words in a second ; 
and suppose he has to write four, and half the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



115 



time is consumed in falling asleep, one second 
only is the duration of the dream, which yet seems 
to last for years, so numerous are the images that 
compose it. 

Another experiment is still more striking, and 
affords a more remarkable proof both of the 
velocity of thought, and of the quickness with 
which its course is moulded to suit any external 
impression made on the senses. But this experi- 
ment is not so easily tried. A puncture made 
will immediately produce a long dream, which 
seems to terminate in some such accident as that 
the sleeper has been wandering through a Avood, 
and received a severe wound from a spear, or the 
tooth of a wild animal, which at the same instant 
awakens him. A gun fired in one instance, during 
the alarm of invasion, made a military man at 
once dream the enemy had landed, so that he ran 
to his post, and repairing to the scene of action, 
was present when the first discharge took place, 
which also the same moment awakened him.* 

Now these facts show the infinite rapidity of 

* The ingenious Eastern tale, in the Spectator, of the magician 
who made the prince plunge his head into a pail of water, is 
founded on facts like those to which we have been referring. 



116 



A DISCOURSE OF 



thought ; for the puncture and the discharge of 
the gun took place in an instant, and their im- 
pression on the senses was as instantaneous ; and 
yet, during that instant, the mind went through 
a long operation of fancy, suggested by the first 
part of the impression, and terminated, as the 
sleep itself was, by the continuation — the last 
portion of the same impression. Mark what was 
done in an instant — in a mere point of time. 
The sensation of the pain or noise beginning 
is conveyed to the mind, and sets it a thinking 
of many things connected with such sensations. 
But that sensation is lost or forgotten for a portion 
of the short instant during which the impression 
lasts ; for the conclusion of the same impression 
gives rise to a new set of ideas. The walk in 
the wood, and the hurrying to the post, are sug- 
gested by the sensation beginning. Then fol- 
low many things unconnected with that sensa- 
tion, except that they grew out of it ; and, lastly, 
comes the wound, and the broadside, suggested 
by the continuance of the sensation, while, all 
the time, this continuance has been producing 
an effect on the mind wholly different from the 
train of ideas the dream consists of, nay, destruc- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



117 



tive of that train — namely, the effect of rousing it 
from the state of sleep, and restoring its domi- 
nion over the body. Nay, there may be said to 
be a third operation of the mind going on at the 
same time with these two — a looking forward to 
the denouement of the plot, — for the fancy is all 
along so contriving as to fit that, by terminat- 
ing in some event, some result consistent with 
the impression made on the senses, and which 
has given rise to the whole train of ideas. 

There seems every reason to conclude, from 
these facts, that we only dream during the instant 
of transition into and out of sleep. That instant 
is quite enough to account for the whole of what 
appears a night's dream. It is quite certain we 
remember no more than ought, according to these 
experiments, to fill an instant of time ; and there 
can be no reason why we should only recollect this 
one portion if we had dreamt much more. The 
fact that we never dream so much as when our rest 
is frequently broken proves the same proposition 
almost to demonstration. An uneasy and rest- 
less night passed in bed is always a night studded 
full with dreams. So, too, a night passed on the 
road in travelling, by such as sleep well in a 



118 



A DISCOURSED OF 



carriage, is a night of constant dreams. E very- 
jolt that awakens or half- awakens us seems to be 
the cause of a dream. If it be said that we 
always or generally dream when asleep, but only 
recollect a portion of our dream, then the ques- 
tion arises, why we recollect a dream each time 
we fall asleep, or are awakened, and no more ? If 
we can recall tAventy dreams in a night of inter- 
rupted sleep, how is it that we can only recall one 
or two when our sleep is continued? The length 
of time occupied by the dream we recollect is the 
only reason that can be given for our forgetting 
the rest ; but this reason fails if, each time we are 
roused, we remember separate dreams. 

Nothing can be conceived better calculated 
than these facts to demonstrate the extreme agi- 
lity of the mental powers, their total diversity 
from any material substances or actions ; nothing 
better adapted to satisfy us that the nature of the 
mind is consistent with its existence apart from 
the body. 

The changes which the mind undergoes in its 
activity, its capacity, its mode of operation, are 
matter of constant observation, indeed of every 
man's experience. Its essence is the same ; its 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



119 



fundamental nature is unalterable ; it never loses 
the distinguishing peculiarities which separate it 
from matter ; never acquires any of the properties 
of the latter ; but it undergoes important changes, 
both in the progress of time, and by means of 
exercise and culture. The development of the 
bodily powers appears to affect it, and so does 
their decay ; but we rather ought to say, that, in 
ordinary cases, its improvement is contempora- 
neous with the growth of the body, and its decline 
generally is contemporaneous with that of the 
body, after an advanced period of life. For it is an 
undoubted fact, and almost universally true, that 
the mind, before extreme old age, becomes more 
sound, and is capable of greater things, during 
nearly thirty years of diminished bodily powers ; 
that, in most cases, it suffers no abatement of 
strength during ten years more of bodily decline ; 
that, in many cases, a few years more of bodily 
decrepitude produce no effect upon the mind ; 
and that, in some instances, its faculties remain 
bright to the last, surviving the almost total ex- 
tinction of the corporeal endowments. It is cer- 
tain that the strength of the body, its agility, its 
patience of fatigue, indeed all its qualities, de- 



120 



A DISCOURSE OF 



cline from thirty at tlie latest ; and yet the mind 
is improving rapidly from thirty to fifty ; suffers 
little or no decline before sixty ; and therefore is 
better when the body is enfeebled, at the age of 
fifty-eight or fifty-nine, than it was in the acme 
of the corporeal faculties thirty years before. It is 
equally certain, that while the body is rapidly de- 
caying, between sixty or sixty-three and seventy, 
the mind suffers hardly any loss of strength in 
the generality of men ; that men continue to 
seventy-five or seventy-six in the possession of 
all their mental powers, while few can then boast 
of more than the remains of physical strength; 
and instances are not wanting of persons who, 
between eighty and ninety, or even older, when 
the body can hardly be said to live, possess every 
faculty of the mind unimpaired. We are au- 
thorised to conclude, from these facts, that unless 
some unusual and violent accident interferes, 
such as a serious illness or a fatal contusion, the 
ordinary course of life presents the mind and the 
body running courses widely different, and in 
great part of the time in opposite directions ; and 
this affords strong proof, both that the mind is 
independent of the body, and that its destruction 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



121 



in the period of its entire vigour is contrary to 
the analogy of nature. 

The strongest of all the arguments both for 
the separate existence of mind, and for its sur- 
viving the body remains, and it is drawn from 
the strictest induction of facts. The body is con- 
stantly undergoing change in all its parts. Pro- 
bably no person at the age of twenty has one 
single particle in any part of his body which he 
had at ten ; and still less does any portion of the 
body he was born with continue to exist in or with 
him. All that he before had has now entered 
into new combinations, forming parts of other 
men, or of animals, or of vegetable or mineral 
substances, exactly as the body he now has will 
afterwards be resolved into new combinations 
after his death. Yet the mind continues one and 
the same, "without change or shadow of turn- 
ing." None of its parts can be resolved ; for it 
is one and single, and it remains unchanged by 
the changes of the body. The argument would 
be quite as strong though the change undergone 
by the body were admitted not to be so com- 
plete, and though some small portion of its 
harder parts were supposed to continue with us 
through life. 

G 



122 



A DISCOURSE OF 



But observe how strong- the inferences arising 
from these facts are,, both to prove that the 
existence of the mind is entirely independent of 
the existence of the body, and to show the pro- 
bability of its surviving ! If the mind continues 
the same while all or nearly all the body is 
changed, it follows that the existence of the mind 
depends not in the least degree upon the exist- 
ence of the body ; for it has already survived a 
total change of, or, in the common use of the 
words, an entire destruction of that body. But 
again, if the strongest argument to show that 
the mind perishes with the body, nay, the only 
argument be, as it indubitably is, derived from 
the phenomena of death, the fact to which we 
have been referring affords an answer to tins. 
For the argument is that we know of no instance 
in which the mind has ever been known to exist 
after the death of the body. Now here is exactly 
the instance desiderated, it being manifest that 
the same process which takes place on the body 
more suddenly at death is taking place more 
gradually, but as effectually in the result, during 
the whole of life, and that death itself does not 
more completely resolve the body into its ele- 
ments and form it into new combinations than 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 123 

living fifteen or twenty years does destroy, by 
like resolution and combination, the self-same 
body. And yet after those years have elapsed, 
and the former body has been dissipated and 
formed into new combinations, the mind remains 
the same as before, exercising the same memory 
and consciousness, and so preserving the same 
personal identity as if the body had suffered no 
change at all. In short, it is not more correct to 
say that all of us who are now living have bodies 
formed of what were once the bodies of those 
who went before us, than it is to say that some 
of us who are now living at the age of fifty have 
bodies which in part belonged to others now 
living at that and other ages. The phenomena 
are precisely the same, and the operations are 
performed in like manner though with different 
degrees of expedition. Now all would believe in 
the separate existence of the soul if they had 
experience of its existing apart from the body. 
But the facts referred to prove that it does exist 
apart from one body with which it once was 
united, and though it is in union with another, 
yet as it is not adherent to the same, it is shown 
to have an existence separate from, and inde- 

g2 



124 



A DISCOURSE OF 



pendent of, that body. So all would believe in 
the soul surviving the body, if after the body's 
death its existence were made manifest. But the 
facts referred to prove that after the body's death, 
that is, after the chronic dissolution which the 
body undergoes during life, the mind continues 
to exist as before. Here, then, we have that 
proof so much desiderated — the existence of the 
soul after the dissolution of the bodily frame 
with ^which it was connected. The two cases 
cannot, in any soundness of reasoning, be dis- 
tinguished ; and this argument, therefore, one of 
pure induction, derived partly from physical 
science, through the evidence of our senses, partly 
from psychological science by the testimony of 
our consciousness, appears to prove the possible 
Immortality of the Soul almost as rigorously as 
" if one were to rise from the dead." 

Now we have gone through the first division 
of this second branch of the subject, and have 
considered the proofs of the separate and future 
existence of the soul afforded by the nature of 
mind. It is quite clear that all of them are 
derived from a strict induction of facts, and 
that the doctrines rest upon precisely the same 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



125 



kind of evidence with that upon which the doc- 
trines respecting the constitution and habits of 
the mind are founded. In truth, the subjects 
are not to be distinguished as regards the species 
of demonstration applicable to them — the process 
by which the investigation of them is to be con- 
ducted. That mind has an existence perceivable 
and demonstrable as well as matter, and that it 
is wholly different from matter in its qualities, is 
a truth proved by induction of facts. That mind 
can exist independent of matter and survive the 
dissolution of the body, is a truth proved exactly 
in the same manner, by induction of facts. The 
phenomena of dreams which lead to important 
conclusions touching the nature of the mind, 
lead, and by the self-same kind of reasoning, to 
important conclusions of a similar description, 
touching the mind's existence independent of the 
body. The facts, partly physical, partly psycho- 
logical, which show the mind to be unaffected by 
the decay and by even the total though gradual 
change of the body during life, likewise show that 
it can exist after the more sudden change of a 
similar kind, which we term the dissolution of 
the body by death. There is no means of sepa- 



126 



A DISCOURSE OF 



rating the two classes of truths, those of Psycho- 
logy and those of Natural Theology; they are 
parts of one and the same science ; they are 
ascertained by one and the same process of in- 
vestigation ; they repose upon one and the same 
kind of evidence; nor can any person, without 
giving way to a most groundless and unphiloso- 
phical prejudice, profess his belief in the former 
doctrines, and reject the latter. -The only differ- 
ence between the two is that the Theological pro- 
positions are of much greater importance to 
human happiness than the Metaphysical. 

II. MORAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF THE DEITY'S 
DESIGNS DRAWN FROM HIS ATTRIBUTES IN CON- 
NEXION WITH THE CONDITION OF THE SPECIES. 

The probable designs of Divine Providence with 
respect to the future lot of man are to be ga- 
thered in part from the nature of the mind itself, 
the work of the Deity, and in part from the attri- 
butes of the Deity, ascertained by an examination 
of his whole works. It thus happens that a por- 
tion of this head of the argument has been anti- 
cipated in treating the other head, the nature of 
the mind. Whatever qualities of the soul show 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



127 



it to differ from matter, both make it improbable 
that it should perish with the body, and make it 
improbable that the Deity should destine it to 
such a catastrophe ; and whatever facts show that 
it can survive a total change of the body during 
life, show likewise the probability that the same 
being who endowed it with that capacity will 
suffer it, in like manner, to continue in being after 
the more sudden change which the body under- 
goes at death. 

The argument built upon the supposed designs 
of the Creator requires to be handled in a hum- 
ble and submissive spirit; but, if so undertaken, 
there is nothing in it which can be charged with 
presumption, or deemed inconsistent with perfect 
though rational devotion. In truth, all the inves- 
tigations of Natural Theology are equally liable to 
such a charge ; for to trace the evidences of design 
in the works of nature, and inquire how far bene- 
volence presides over their formation and main- 
tenance — in other words, to deduce from what 
we see, the existence of the Deity, and speculate 
upon His wisdom and goodness in the creation 
and government of the universe — is just as daring 
a thing, and exactly of the same kind of audacity, 



128 



A DISCOURSE OF 



as to speculate upon His probable intentions with 
respect to the future destiny of man. 

The contemplation of the Deity's goodness, as de- 
ducible from the great preponderance of instances 
in which benevolent design is exhibited, when 
accompanied with a consideration of the feelings 
and wishes of the human mind, gives rise to the 
first argument which is usually adduced in favour 
of the Immortality of the Soul. There is nothing 
more universal or more constant than the strong 
desire of immortality which possesses the mind, 
and compared with which its other wishes and 
solicitudes are but faint and occasional. That a 
benevolent being should have implanted this pro- 
pensity without the intention of gratifying it, 
and to serve no very apparent purpose unless 
it be the proving that it is without an object, 
appears difficult to believe : for certainly the in- 
stinctive fear of death would have served all the 
purposes of self-preservation without any desire 
of immortality being connected with it, although 
there can be no doubt that this desire, or at least 
the anxiety about our future destiny, is intimately 
related to our dread of dissolution. But the in- 
ference acquires additional strength from the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



129 



consideration that the faculties of the mind ripen 
and improve almost to the time of the body's 
extinction, and that the destruction of the soul 
at the moment of its being fitter than ever for 
worthy things seems quite inconceivable. 

The tender affections so strongly and so uni- 
versally operating in our nature afford another 
argument of a like kind. No doubt the purpose 
to which they are subservient in this life is much 
more distinctly perceivable ; yet still it is incon- 
sistent with the provisions of a benevolent Power 
to suppose that we should be made susceptible 
of such vehement feelings, and be suffered to 
indulge in them, so as to make our happiness 
chiefly consist in their gratification, and that then 
we should suddenly be made to undergo the 
bitter pangs of separation, while, by our surviving, 
those pains are lengthened out without any useful 
effect resulting from our sufferings. That such 
separations should be eternal appears irreconcil- 
able with the strength of the affections wounded, 
and with the goodness so generally perceived in 
the order of the universe. The supposition of 
a re-union hereafter overcomes the difficulty, and 
reconciles the apparent inconsistency. 

g3 



130 



A DISCOURSE OF 



The unequal distribution of rewards and pu- 
nishments in this world, that is, the misery in 
which virtue often exists, and the prosperity not 
seldom attendant upon vice, can in no way be so 
well accounted for, consistently with the scheme 
of a benevolent Providence, as by the supposition 
of a Future State. 

But perhaps there is nothing more strongly 
indicative of such a design in the Creator than 
the universal prevalence of religion amongst men. 
There can hardly be found a tribe so dark and 
barbarous as to be without some kind of worship, 
and some belief in a future state of existence. 
Now all religions are so far of God that he per- 
mits them ; he made and preserves the faculties 
which have invented the false ones, as well as 
those which comprehend and treasure up the 
true faith. Religious belief, religious observance, 
the looking forward to a future existence, and 
pointing to a condition in which the deeds done 
on earth shall be visited with just recompense, 
are all facts of universal occurrence in the history 
and intellectual habits of the species. Are they 
all a mere fiction ? Do they indeed signify no- 
thing ? Is that a mere groundless fancy, which 



NATURAL TEEOLOGY. 



131 



. in all places, in all ages, occupies and has occu- 
pied the thoughts, and mingled itself with the 
actions of all mankind, whether barbarous or 
refined ?* 

But if it be said that the belief of such a state 
is subservient to an important use, the restraining 
the passions and elevating the feelings, it is 
obvious to reply, that so great a mechanism to 
produce this effect very imperfectly and precari- 
ously, appears little consistent with the ordinary 
efficacy and simplichy of the works of Providence, 
and that the disposition to shun vice and debase- 
ment could have been more easily and more cer- 
tainly implanted by making them disgusting. 
True, there would then have been little merit in 
the restraint ; but of what value is the production 
of such merit, if the mind which attains it and 
becomes adorned by it has no sooner approached 
perfection than it ceases to exist at all? The 
supposition of a Future State at once reconciles 
all inconsistencies here as before, and enables 
us to comprehend why virtue is taught by the 
hopes of another life, as well as why those hopes, 



* Notes VIII. and IX. 



132 



A DISCOURSE OF 



and the grounds they rest on, form so large a 
portion of human contemplation. 

That the existence of the soul in a new state 
after the entire dissolution of the body — nay, that 
the existence of the body itself in a new state, 
after passing through death, is nothing contrary 
to the analogies which nature presents, has been 
oftentimes observed, and is a topic much dwelt 
upon, especially by the ancient philosophers. 
The extraordinary transformations which insects 
undergo have struck men's imaginations so power- 
fully in contemplating this subject, that the soul 
itself was deemed of old to be aptly designated 
under the emblematical form of a butterfly, which 
having emerged from the chrysalis state, flutters 
in the air, instead of continuing to crawl on the 
earth, as it did before the worm it once was ceased 
to exist. The instance of the foetus of animals, 
and especially of the human embryo, has occu- 
pied the attention of modern inquirers into this 
interesting subject. Marking the entire difference 
in one state of existence before and after birth, 
and the diversity of every one animal function at 
those two periods, philosophers have inferred, that 
as on passing from the one to the other state of 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



133 



existence so mighty a change is wrought, without 
any destruction either of soul or body, a like 
transition may take place at death, and the event 
which appears to close our being may only open 
the portals of a new, and higher, and more lasting 
condition. As far as such considerations suggest 
analogies, they furnish matter of pleasing con- 
templation, perhaps lend even some illustration to 
the argument. Nevertheless, they must be re- 
garded as exceedingly feeble helps in this latter 
respect, if indeed their aid be not of a doubtful, 
and even dangerous kind. They are all drawn 
from material objects, — all rest upon the pro- 
perties and the fortunes of corporeal existences. 
Now the stronghold of those who maintain the 
Immortality of the Soul, and, indeed, all the doc- 
trines of Natural Theology, is the entire difference 
between mind and matter, and the proofs we have 
constantly around us, and within us, of existences 
as real as the bodies which affect our outward 
senses, but resembling those perishable things in 
no one quality, no one habit of action, no one 
mode of being. 

Upon the particulars of a future state — the 
kind of existence reserved for the soul — the spe- 



134 



A DISCOURSE OF 



cies of its occupations and enjoyments — Natural 
Theology is, of course, profoundly silent ; but not 
more silent than Eevelation. We are left wholly 
to conjecture, and in a field on which our hope- 
lessness of attaining any certain result is quite 
equal to our interest in the success of the search. 
Indeed, all our ideas of happiness in this world 
are such as rather to disqualify us for the investi- 
gation, or what may more fitly be termed the 
imagination. Those ideas are, for the most part, 
either directly connected with the senses, or de- 
rived from our condition of weakness here which 
occasions the formation of connexions for mutual 
comfort and support, and gives to the feebler 
party the feeling of allegiance, to the stronger 
the pleasure of protection. Yet may we conceive 
that, hereafter, such of our affections as have been 
the most cherished in life shall survive and form 
again the delight of meeting those from whom 
death has severed us — that the soul may enjoy 
the purest delights in the exercise of its powers, 
above all, for the investigation of truth — that it 
may expatiate in the full discovery of whatever 
has hitherto been most sparingly revealed, or 
most carefully hidden from its view — that it may 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



135 



be gratified with the sight of the useful harvest 
reaped by the world from the good seed which it 
helped to sow. We can only conjecture or fancy. 
But these, and such as these, are pleasures in 
which the gross indulgences of sense have no 
part, and which are even removed above the less 
refined of our moral gratifications : they may, 
therefore, be supposed consistent with a pure and 
faultless state of spiritual being. 

Perhaps the greatest of all the difficulties which 
we feel in forming such conjectures, regards the 
endless duration of an immortal existence. All 
our ideas in this world are so adapted to a limited 
continuance of life — not only so moulded upon 
the scheme of a being incapable of lasting beyond 
a few years, but so inseparably connected with a 
constant change even here — a perpetual termina- 
tion of one stage of existence and beginning of 
another — that we cannot easily, if at all, fancy an 
eternal, or even a long-continued, endurance of 
the same faculties, the same pursuits, and the 
same enjoyments. All here is in perpetual move- 
ment — ceaseless change. There is nothing in us 
or about us that abides an hour — nay, an instant. 
Kesting-place there is none for the foot— no haven 



136 



A DISCOURSE OF 



is provided where the mind may be still. How 
then shall a creature, thus wholly ignorant of 
repose — unacquainted with any continuation at 
all in any portion of his existence — so far abstract 
his thoughts from his whole experience as to 
conceive a long, much more a perpetual, duration 
of the same powers, pursuits, feelings, pleasures ? 
Here it is that we are the most lost in our en- 
deavours to reach the seats of the blessed with 
our imperfect organs of perception, and our inve- 
terate and only habits of thinking.* 

* The part of Dean Swift's satire which relates to the Slulbrugs 
may possibly occur to some readers as bearing upon this topic. That 
the staunch admirers of that singularly-gifted person should have 
been flung into ecstacies on the perusal of this extraordinary part 
of his writings, needs not surprise us. Their raptures were full 
easily excited ; but I am quite clear they have given a wrong gloss 
to it, and heaped upon its merits a very undeserved praise. They 
think that the picture of the Stulbrugs was intended to wean us 
from a love of life, and that it has well accomplished its purpose. 
I am very certain that the Dean never had any such thing in 
view, because his sagacity was far too great not to perceive that 
he only could make out this position by a most undisguised begging 
of the question. How could any man of the most ordinary re- 
flection expect to wean his fellow-creatures from love of life by 
describing a sort of persons who at a given age lost their faculties, 
and became doting, drivelling idiots ? Did any man breathing 
ever pretend that he wished to live, not only for centuries, but even 
for threescore years and ten, bereaved of his understanding, and 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



137 



It remains to observe, that all the speculations 
upon which we have touched under this second 
subdivision of the subject, the moral argument, 
are similar to the doctrines of inductive science — 
at least to such of those doctrines as are less 
perfectly ascertained; but the investigation is 
conducted upon the same principles. The most 
satisfactory proofs of the soul's immortality are 
those of the first, or psychological class, derived 
from studying the nature of mind ; those of the 
second class which we have last been surveying, 
derived from the condition of man in connexion 
with the attributes of the Deity, are less distinct 
and cogent ; nor would they be sufficient of 
themselves ; but they add important confirmation 
to the others ; and both are as truly parts of 
legitimate inductive science as any branch — we 
may rather say, any other branch — of moral phi- 
losophy. 

treated by the law and by his fellow men as in hopeless, incurable 
dotage ? The passage in question is much more likely to have 
proceeded from Swift's exaggerated misanthropy, and to have 
been designed as an antidote to human pride, by showing that 
our duration is necessarily limited — if, indeed, it is not rather 
to be regarded as the work of mere whim and caprice. 



138 



A DISCOURSE OF 



SECTION VI. 

LORD BACON'S DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES*. 

It now appears, that when we said that Natural 
Theology can no more be distinguished from 
the physical, psychological, and ethical sciences, 
in respect of the evidence it rests upon and 
the manner in which its investigations are to 
be conducted, than the different departments of 
those sciences can be distinguished from each 
other in the like respect, we were only making 
an assertion borne out by a close and rigorous 
examination of the subject. How, then, comes 
it to pass, it may be asked, that the father of 
Inductive Philosophy has banished the specula- 
tion of Final Causes from his system, as if it were 
no branch of inductive science ? A more atten- 
tive consideration of the question will show, first, 
that the sentence which he pronounced has been 
not a little misunderstood by persons who looked 
only at particular aphorisms, without duly regard- 
ing the context and the occasion ; and, secondly, 
* Note X. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



139 



that Lord Bacon may very probably have con- 
ceived a prejudice against the subject altogether, 
from the abuses, or indeed perversions, to which a 
misplaced affection for it had given rise in some 
of the ancient schools of philosophy. 

That Lord Bacon speaks disparagingly of the in- 
quiry concerning final causes, both when he handles 
it didactically, and when he mentions it incident- 
ally, is admitted. He enumerates it among the 
errors that spring from the restlessness of mind 
(impotentia mentis), which forms the fourth class 
of the idols of the species (idola tribus) or causes of 
false philosophy connected with the peculiarities 
of the human constitution.* In other parts of the 
same work he descants upon the mischiefs which 
have arisen in the schools from mixing the doc- 
trines of natural religion with those of natural 
philosophy ; f and he more than once treats of the 
inquiry concerning final causes as a barren specu- 
lation, comparing it to a nun or a vestal conse- 
crated to heaven. J But a nearer examination 

* Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 48. 
f lb. Aph. 96 ; and De Dig. et Aug. lib. i. 
X (t Steriiis et tanquam virgo deo sacra non parit." c. 5. De 
Dig. lib. iii. 



140 



A DISCOURSE OF 



of this great authority will show that it is not 
adverse to our doctrine. 

1 . First of all it is to be remarked, that Lord 
Bacon does not disapprove of the speculation con- 
cerning final causes absolutely, and does not un- 
dervalue the doctrines of Natural Religion, so long 
as that speculation and those doctrines are kept in 
their proper place. His whole writings bear testi- 
mony to the truth of this proposition. In the Pa- 
rasceve to natural and experimental history, which 
closes the Novum Organum, he calls the history of 
the phenomena of nature a volume of the work of 
God, and as it were another Bible — " volumen ope- 
rumDei, et tanquam altera scriptura."* In the first 
book of the De Dignitate, he says there are two 
books of religion to be consulted — the scriptures, 
to tell the will of God, and the book of creation, 
to show his power.f Accordingly he maintains 
elsewhere,;}: that a miracle was never yet per- 
formed to convert atheists, because these might 
always arrive at the knowledge of a Deity by the 
light of nature. Nor ought we to pass over the 
remarkable passage of the Cogitata et Visa, in 
which he propounds the use of Natural Philo- 

* Parasceve, c. 9. f Lib. i. + lb. lib. iii. c. 13. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



141 



sophy as the cure for superstition and the support 
of true religion. " Naturalem Philosophiam, post 
verbum Dei, certissimam superstitionis rnedici- 
nam, eandem probatissimam ficlei alimentum esse. 
Itaque merito religioni tanquam fidatissimam et 
acceptissimam ancillam attribui, cum altera vo- 
luntatem Dei, altera potestatem manifestet." * 
If the earlier part of the passage left any doubt 
of the kind of service which religion was to derive 
from inductive science, the last words clearly show 
that it could only be by the doctrine of final 
causes. 

2. But further, he distinctly classes natural re- 
ligion among the branches of legitimate science ; 
and it is of great and decisive importance to our 
present inquiry that we should mark the particu- 
lar place which he assigns to it. He first divides 
science into two great branches, Theology and 
Philosophy — comprehending under the former 
description only the doctrines of revelation, and 
under the latter all human science. Now, after 
expressly excluding Natural Eeligion f from the 
first class, he treats it as a part of the second. 

* Francisci Baconi, Cogitata et Visa, 
f De Dig. lib. iii. c. 1. 



142 



A DISCOURSE OF 



The second, or philosophy, is divided into three 
parts, according as its object is the Deity, Nature, 
or Man. The first of these subdivisions constitutes 
Natural Religion, which he says may be termed 
Divine knowledge, if you regard its object, but 
Natural knowledge, if you consider its nature and 
evidence (" ratione informationis scientia natu- 
ralis censeri potest."*) That he places it in a 
different subdivision from Natural Philosophy 
proves nothing ; for he classes anatomy, medicine, 
and intellectual philosophy also in a different 
subdivision : they come under the head of Human 
Philosophy, or the science of man, as contradistin- 
guished from Natural Theology and Natural Phi- 
losophy, or the science of God and of external 
objects. Many objections may undoubtedly be 
made to this classification, of which it is perhaps 
enough to say, that it leads to separating optics 
as well as anatomy and medicinef from natural 
philosophy. But, at all events, it shows both that 
Lord Bacon deemed Natural Theology a fit object 
of philosophical inquiry, and that he regarded the 

* De Big. lib. iii. c. 2. 

f lb. lib. iv. c. 3. He treats of the desiderata in optics, under 
the head of the human mind — the senses. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



143 



inductive method as furnishing the means by 
which the inquiry was to be conducted. 

3. The general censure upon the doctrine of 
final causes to which we have in the outset ad- 
verted, as conveyed by certain incidental remarks, 
is manifestly directed against the abuse of such 
speculations, and more especially in the ancient 
schools of philosophy. Lord Bacon justly objects 
to the confounding of final with efficient or physi- 
cal causes ; he marks the loose and figurative lan- 
guage to which this confusion has given rise ; he 
asks if it is philosophical to describe the eye as 
Aristotle, Galen, and others do, with the eyelids 
and eyelashes as a wall and a hedge to protect it ; 
or the bones as so many beams and pillars to 
support the body;* and he is naturally appre- 
hensive of the danger which may result from men 
introducing fancies of their own into science, and, 
above all, from their setting out with such fancies, 
and then making the facts bend to humour them. 
This is indeed the great abuse of the doctrine of 
final causes ; and the more to be dreaded in its 
consequences, because of the religious feelings 



* De Dig. lib. iii. c. 4. 



144 



A DISCOURSE OF 



which are apt to mix themselves with such specu- 
lations, and to consecrate error.* 

4. The objections of Lord Bacon are the more 
clearly shown to be levelled against the abuse 
only, that we find him speaking in nearly similar 
terms of logic and the mathematics as having 
impeded the progress of natural science. In the 
passage already referred to, and which occurs 
twice in his books, where the Platonists are 
accused of mixing Natural Keligion with philo- 
sophy, the latter Platonists (or Eclectics) are in 
the same words charged with corrupting it by the 
mathematics, and the Peripatetics by logic. f Not 
certainly that the greatest logician of modern 
times could undervalue either his own art or the 
skill of the analyst, but because Aristotle through 
dialectic, and Proclus through geometrical pe- 

* This idea is expressed by Bacon, with his wonted felicity, in 
the 75th Aphorism. (: Pessimaenim res esterrorum apotheosis; et 
pro peste intellectus habenda est, si vanis accedat veneratio." (Nor. 
Org. lib. i.) He gives an instance of this folly in the perverted 
use made of some portions of the Bible history — "Hincvanitat 
nonnulli ex modernis summa levitate ita indulserunt, ut in prirao 
capitulo Geneseos et in libro Job et aliis scripturis sacris, Philoso- 
phiam Naturalem fundare conati sint ; inter viva qucerentes mortua" 

f Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 96 ; De Dig. lib. i. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



145 



dantry, neglected that humbler but more useful 
province of watching and interpreting nature, and 
used the instruments furnished by logic and the 
mathematics, not to assist them in classifying facts, 
or in reasoning from them, but to construct phan- 
tastic theories, to which they made the facts bend. 

When rightly examined, then, the authority of 
Lord Bacon appears not to oppose the doctrine 
which we are seeking to illustrate. Yet it is 
possible that a strong impression of the evils 
occasioned by the abuse of these speculations 
may have given him a less favourable opinion of 
them than they deserved. It appears that he 
had even conceived some prejudice against 
logic and the mathematics from a similar 
cause ; and he manifests it, not only in the pas- 
sages already referred to, but in that portion of 
his treatise De Dig. et Aug., in which he treats of 
mathematical as an appendix to physical science, 
expressing much hesitation whether to rank it as 
a science, and delivering himself with some aspe- 
rity against both logicians and mathematicians.* 

* De Dig. lib. iii. c. 6. — Delicias et festum mathematicorum, 
qui hanc scientiam physicse fieri imperare cupiunt. Nescio enirn 
quo fato fiat ut mathematica et logica quso ancillarum loca erga 

H 



146 



A DISCOURSE OF 



High, as is the authority of this great man — and 
upon the subject of the present inquiry the 
highest of all — yet, if it clearly appears that the 
argument from Final Causes comes within the 
scope of inductive science, we are bound to admit 
it within the circle of legitimate human know- 
ledge, even if we found the father of that science 
had otherwise judged. It is clear that, had he 
now lived, he would himself have rejected some 
speculations as wholly beyond the reach of the 
human faculties, which he unhesitatingly ranges 
among the objects of sound philosophy.* It is 
equally undeniable that he would have treated 
others with greater respect than he has shown 
them.f Above all, it is certain that he would 

physicam se gerere debebant, nihilominus, certitudinem prea se 
jactantes, dominationem exercere petunt." 

* He distinctly considers the " doctrine of angels and spirits" as 
an a appendix to Natural Theology," and holds that their nature 
may be investigated by science, including that of unclean spirits 
or daemons, which he says hold in this inquiry the same place as 
poisons do in physics, or vices in ethics. — (De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2.) 
Natural magic, the doctrine of fascination, the discovery of futurity 
from dreams and ecstacies, especially in bad health from death- 
bed glimpses — in a word, divination — he holds to be branches of 
science deserving of cultivation ; though he warns against sorcery, 
or the practice of witchcraft. — (lb. lib. iv. c. 3, and lib. ii. c. 2.) 
{• He complains of treatises of Natural History being "swelled 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



147 



never have suffered that the veneration due to 
his own name should enshrine an idol* to ob- 
struct the progress of truth, and alienate her 
votaries from the true worship which he himself 
had founded. 

That Lord Bacon has not himself indulged in 
any speculations akin to those of Natural Theo- 
logy is, beyond all dispute, true. There is hardly 
any writer upon moral or natural science, in 
whose works fewer references can be found to the 
power or wisdom of a superintending Providence. 
It would be difficult to find in any other author, 
ancient or modern, as much of very miscellaneous 
matter upon almost all physical subjects as he has 
brought together in the Syha Sylvarum, without 
one allusion to Final Causes. But it must also' be 
admitted, that it would not be easy to find in any 
other writer of the least name upon physical sub- 
jects so little of value, and so much that is wholly 
unworthy of respect. That work is, indeed, a 
striking instance of the inequalities of the human 

with figures of animals and plants, and other superfluous matter?, 
instead of being enriched with solid observations." — (De Dig. lib. 
ii. c. 3.) 

* Xdolum theatri. 

h2 



148 



A DISCOURSE OF 



faculties. Among the one thousand observa- 
tions of which it consists, hardly one — of the two 
hundred and eighteen pages certainly not one — 
can be found in which there is not some instance 
of credulity, superstition, groundless hypothesis, 
manifest error of some kind or other ; and nothing 
at any time given to the world ever exhibited a 
more entire disregard of all his own rules of phi- 
losophizing : for a superficial examination of facts, 
a hasty induction, and a proneness to fanciful 
theory 3 form the distinguishing characters of the 
whole book. Assuredly it is a proof that the 
doctrine of Final Causes is not the only parent of 
a "phantastic philosophy," though the other base 
undergrowth of "heretical religion" * may not be 
found in the recesses of the Sylva. 

Descartes, whose original genius for the ab- 
stract sciences fixed an sera in the history of pure 

* This sinking and epigrammatic antithesis occurs more than 
once in his writings. Thus, in the Nov. Org. lib- i. aph. 65—" Ex 
divinorum et humanorum malesana admixtione, non solum edu- 
citur philosophia phantastica, sed etiam Religio haeretica;"' and 
again, in De Dig. and Aug. lib. iii. c. 2, speaking of the abuse of 
speculations touching natural religion, he remarks on the "incom- 
moda et pericula quai ex eo (abusu) turn religioni, turn philoso- 
phia? impendent, utpote qui religionem haereticam procudit et 
philosophiam phantasticam et superstitiosam." 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



149 



mathematics, as remarkable as Bacon's genius did 
in that of logic, like him failed egregiously as a 
cultivator of natural philosophy ; and he excluded 
Final Causes altogether from his system as a pre- 
posterous speculation — an irreverent attempt to 
penetrate mysteries hidden from human eyes by 
the imperfection of our nature. But it is to be 
observed, that all the successful cultivators of 
physical science have, as if under the influence of 
an irresistible impulsion, indulged in the sublime 
contemplations of Natural Religion. Nor have 
they fallen into this track from feeling and senti- 
ment ; they have pursued it as one of the paths 
which inductive philosophy opens to the student 
of nature. To say nothing of Mr. Boyle, one of 
the earliest cultivators of experimental philo- 
sophy, whose works are throughout imbued with 
this spirit, and who has left a treatise expressly 
on the subject of Final Causes, let us listen to the 
words of Sir Isaac Newton himself. The greatest 
work of man, the Principia, closes with a swiffc 
transition from its most difficult investigation, the 
determination and correction of a comet's tra- 
jectory upon the parabolic hypothesis,* to that 

* Principia, lib. iii. Prop. xli. and xlii. 



150 



A DISCOURSE OF 



celebrated scholium, upon which Dr. Clarke's 
argument a priori for the existence of a Deity is 
built. But whatever may be deemed the sound- 
ness of that argument, or the intrinsic value of 
the eloquent and sublime passages which lay its 
foundation, its illustrious author at the same time 
points our attention to the demonstration from 
induction, and in the most distinct and positive 
terms sanctions the doctrine, that this is a legi- 
timate branch of natural knowledge. ** Hunc 
(Deum) cognoscimus per proprietates ejus et at- 
tributa et per sapientissimas et optimas rerum 
structuras et causas finales, et admiramur ob pro- 
spectiones." — «■ Deus sine dominio, providentia, 
et causis finalibus, nihil aliud est quam fatum et 
natural — w Et haec de Deo — de quo utique ex 
phsenomenis disserere ad philosophiam naturalem 
per tinet . " — (Scholium Generate .) 

And if he could not rest from his immortal 
labours in setting forth the system of the Uni- 
verse, without raising his mind to the contem- 
plation of Him who "weighed the mountains in 
scales and the hills in a balance," so neither could 
he pursue the more minute operations of the 
most subtile material agent, without again 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



151 



rising towards Him who said " Let there be 
light." The most exquisite investigation ever 
conducted by man of the laws of nature by the 
means of experiment, abounds in its latter portion 
with explicit references to the doctrines of Natu- 
ral Theolog}', and with admissions that the busi- 
ness of physical science is " to deduce causes 
from effects till we come to the very First Cause/' 
and that " every true step made in inductive 
philosophy is to be highly valued, because it 
brings us nearer to the First Cause." * 

* Optics, Book iii. Query 28. — "How came the bodies of ani- 
mals to be contrived with so much art, and for what ends were the 
several parts ? Was the eye contrived without skill in optics, and 
the ear without knowledge of sound f"' (See, tuo. Query 31.) 



152 



A DISCOURSE OF 



SECTION VII. 

OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT, AND THE METHODS 
OF ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS. 

Having shown that Natural Theology is a branch 
of inductive science — partly physical, partly intel- 
lectual and moral — it is of comparatively little im- 
portance to inquire whether or not it can be kept 
apart from the other branches of those sciences. 
In one view of this question we may say, that 
there is no more ground for the separation than 
there would be for making a distinct science of 
all the propositions in Natural Philosophy which 
immediately relate to the human body — whereby 
we should have portions of dynamics, pneumatics, 
optics, chemistry, electricity, and all human ana- 
tomy and pathology as contradistinguished from 
comparative, reduced under one and the same 
head — a classification, indeed, resembling Lord 
Bacon's. But in another, and, as it seems, the 
more just view, there is a sufficient number of 
resemblances and differences, and the importance 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



153 



of the subject is sufficient, to justify the making 
a separate head of Natural Theology. The ques- 
tion is entirely one of convenience ; nothing of 
essential moment turns upon the classification; 
and there is obviously an advantage in having 
the truths collected in one body, though they 
are culled from the various parts of Physical 
and Metaphysical science to which they naturally 
belong. All that is needful is, constantly to keep 
in mind the identity of the evidence on which 
these truths rest, with that which is the ground- 
work of those other parts of philosophy. 

Although, however, convenience and the para- 
mount importance of the subject seem to require 
such a separation, it is manifest that much of 
theology must still be found intermingled with 
physics and psychology, and there only ; for the 
truths of Natural Theology being sufficiently de- 
monstrated by a certain induction of facts — a 
certain number of experiments and observations 
— no further proof is required ; and to assemble 
all the evidence, if it were possible, would be only 
incumbering the subject with superfluous proofs, 
while the collection would still remain incomplete, 
as every day is adding to the instances discovered 

h3 



154 



A DISCOURSE OF 



of design appearing in the phenomena of the na^ 
tural and moral world. It has been said, indeed, 
that a single well-established proof of design is 
enough, and that no additional strength is gained 
to the argument by multiplying the instances. 
We shall afterwards show with what limitations 
this proposition is to be received; but for our 
present purpose it is sufficient, that, at all events, 
a certain definite number of instances are of force 
enough to work out the demonstration ; and yet 
in every branch of physics and psychology new 
instances are presented at each step we make. 
These instances are of great importance ; they 
are to be carefully noted and treasured up ; they 
form most valuable parts of those scientific in- 
quiries, conveying, in its purest form and in its 
highest degree, the gratification of contemplating 
abstract truths, in which consists the whole of the 
pleasure derived from science, properly so called — 
that is, from science as such, and as independent 
of its application to uses or enjoyments of a cor- 
poreal kind. 

An apprehension has frequently been enter- 
tained by learned and pious men — men of a truly 
philosophical spirit — lest the natural desire of 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



155 



tracing design in the works of nature should 
carry inquirers too far, and lead them to give 
scope to their imagination rather than contain 
then* speculations within the bounds of strict rea- 
soning. They have dreaded the introduction of 
what Lord Bacon calls a "phantastic philosophy/' 
and have also felt alarm at the injuries which reli- 
gion may receive from being exposed to ridicule, 
in the event of the speculations proving ground- 
less upon a closer examination. But it does not 
appear reasonable that philosophers should be 
deterred by such considerations from anxiously in- 
vestigating the subject of Final Causes, and giving 
it the place which belongs to it in all their in- 
quiries ; provided that they do not suffer fancy to 
intermix with and disturb their speculations. If 
they do, they commit the greatest error of which 
reasoners can be guilty — an error against which 
it is the very object of inductive philosophy to 
guard ; but it is no more an error in this, than in 
the other investigations of science. He who ima- 
gines design where there is none ; he who either 
assumes facts in order to build upon them an 
inference favourable to Natural Keligion, or from 
admitted facts draws such an inference fancifully, 



156 



A DISCOURSE OF 



and not logically, comes within the description of 
a false philosopher : he prefers the hypothetical 
to the inductive method ; he cannot say with his 
master, "hypotheses non fingo;"* he renounces 
the modern, and recurs to the exploded modes of 
philosophising. But he is not the more a false 
philosopher, and does not the more sin against 
the light of improved science, for committing the 
offence in the pursuit of theological truth. He 
would have been liable to the same charge if he 
had resorted to his fancy instead of observation 
and experiment while in search of any other scien- 
tific truth, or had hypothetically assumed a prin- 
ciple of classifying admitted phenomena, instead 
of rigorously deducing it from examining their 
circumstances of resemblance and of diversity. 

That any serious discredit can be brought upon 
the science of Natural Theology itself, from the 
failures to which such hypothetical reasonings 
may lead, seems not very easy to conceive. Vain 
and superficial minds may take any subject for 
their ridicule, and may laugh at the mechanician 
and the chemist as well as the theologian, when 
they chance to go astray in their searches after 

* Piincipia, lib. iii. Sch. Gen. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



157 



truth. Yet no one ever thought of being 1 discou- 
raged from experimental inquiries, because even 
the strictest prosecution of the inductive method 
cannot always guard against error. It is of the 
essence of all investigations of merely contingent 
truth, that they are exposed to casualties which do 
not beset the paths of the geometrician and the 
analyst. A conclusion from one induction of facts 
may be well warranted until a larger induction 
obliges us to abandon it, and adopt another. Yet 
no one deems chemistry discredited because a 
body considered in one state of our knowledge 
to be a compound acid has since appeared rather 
to be a simple substance, bearing to the acids no 
resemblance in its composition; nor would the 
optical discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton be discre- 
dited, much less the science he cultivated be 
degraded, if the undulatory hypothesis should, 
on a fuller inquiry, become established by strict 
proof. Yet such errors, or rather such imperfect 
and partial views, were the result of a strict obe- 
dience to the inductive rules of philosophising. 
How much less ground for cavil against either 
those rules, or the sciences to which they are ap- 
plicable, would be afforded by the observations of 



158 



A DISCOURSE OF 



those who had mistaken their way through a 
neglect of inductive principle, and by following 
blindly false guides ! 

While then, on the one hand, we allow Natural 
Theology to form a distinct head or branch, the 
other sciences must of necessity continue to class 
its truths among their own ; and thus every science 
may be stated to consist of three divisions — 1. The 
truths which it teaches relative to the constitution 
and action of matter or of mind ; — 2. The truths 
which it teaches relative to theology ; and 3. The 
application of both classes of truths to practical 
uses, physical or moral. Thus, the science of 
pneumatics teaches, under the first head, the doc- 
trine of the pressure of the atmosphere, and its 
connexion with respiration, and with the suspen- 
sion of weights by the formation of a vacuum. 
Under the second head, it shows the adaptation of 
the lungs of certain animals to breathe the air, 
and the feet of others to support their bodies, in 
consequence of both being framed in accordance 
with the former doctrine — that is, with the law of 
pressure — and thus demonstrates a wise and bene- 
ficent design. Under the third head, it teaches the 
construction of barometers, steam-engines, &c, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



159 



while the contemplation of the Divine wisdom 
and goodness inculcates piety, patience, and 
hope. 

But it may be said, that in this classification of 
the objects of science, we omit one ordinarily 
reckoned essential — the explanation of pheno- 
mena. The answer is, that such a classification 
is not strictly accurate, as no definite line can be 
drawn between the explanation of phenomena 
and the analytical process by which the truths 
themselves are established: in a word, between 
analysis and synthesis in the sciences of contingent 
truth. For the same phenomena which form the 
materials of the analytical investigation — the steps 
that lead us to the proposition or discovery — 
would, in a reversed order, become the subjects of 
the synthetical operation ; that is, the tilings to 
be explained by means of the proposition or dis- 
covery, if we had been led to it by another route, 
in other words, if we had reached it by means of 
other phenomena of the like kind, referrible to the 
same class, and falling within the same principle 
or rule. Thus the experiments upon the pris- 
matic spectrum prove the sun's light to be com- 
posed of rays of different refrangibility. This 



160 



A DISCOURSE OF 



being demonstrated, we may explain by means of 
it the phenomena which form the proofs of the first 
proposition of the "Optics," that lights which 
differ in colour differ in refrangibility — as that a 
parallelogram of two colours refracted through a 
prism has its sides no longer parallel ; or, having 
shown the different refrangibility by the prismatic 
phenomena, we may explain why a lens has the 
focus of violet rays nearer than the focus of red, 
while this experiment is of itself one of the most 
cogent proofs of the different refrangibility. It is 
plain that, in these cases, the same phenomenon 
may be made indiscriminately the subject matter 
either of analysis or synthesis. So, one of the 
proofs given of latent heat is, that after you heat 
a bar of iron once or twice by hammering it, the 
power of being thus heated is exhausted, until by 
exposing it to the fire that power is restored. Yet, 
suppose we had proved the doctrine of the absorp- 
tion of heat by other experiments — as by the 
effects on the thermometer of liquids of different 
temperatures mixed together — the phenomenon 
of the iron bar would be explicable by that doc- 
trine thus learnt. Again, another proof of the 
same truth is the production of heat by the sudden 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



161 



condensation of gaseous fluids, and of cold by 
evaporation, the evolution of heat being* inferred 
from the former, and its absorption from the latter 
operation. But if the experiments upon the mix- 
ture of fluids of different temperatures, and other 
facts, had sufficiently proved the disappearance of 
heat in its sensible form, and its being held in a 
state in which it did not affect the thermometer, 
we should by means of that doctrine have been 
able to account for the refrigerating effect of eva- 
poration, and the heating power of condensation. 

It cannot, then, be a real and an accurate dis- 
tinction, or one founded on the nature of the 
thing, which depends on the accident of the one 
set of facts having been chosen for the instru- 
ments of the analytical, and the other set for the 
subjects of the synthetical operation, each set 
being alike applicable to either use. For, in order 
that the synthesis may be correct, nay, in order 
that it may be strict and not hypothetical, it is ob- 
viously necessary that the phenomena should be 
of such a description as might have made them 
subservient to the analysis. In truth, both the 
operations are essentially the same — the general- 
ization of particulars — the arranging or classifying 



162 



A DISCOURSE OF 



facts so as to obtain a more general or compre- 
hensive fact ; and the explanation of phenomena 
is just as much a process of generalization or 
classification as the investigation of the proposi- 
tion itself, by means of which you are to give the 
explanation. We do not perform two operations, 
but one, in these investigations. We do not in 
reality first find by the prism that light is dif- 
ferently refrangible, and then explain the rain- 
bow — or show by the air-pump that the atmos- 
phere presses with the weight of so many pounds 
upon a square foot, and then explain the steam- 
engine and the fly's foot — or prove, by burning 
the two weighed gases together and burning iron 
in one of them, that water is composed of them 
both, and that rust is the metal combined with 
one, and then explain why iron rusts in water. 
But we observe all these several facts, and find 
that they are related to each other, and resolvable 
into three classes — that the phenomena of the 
prism and of the shower are the same, the spec- 
trum and the rainbow being varieties of the same 
fact, more general than either, and comprehending 
many others, all reducible within its compass — 
that the air-pump, the steam-engine, the fly's foot, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



163 



are all the same fact, and come within a descrip- 
tion still more general and compendious — that 
the rusting of iron, the burning of inflammable 
air, and the partial consumption of the blood in 
the lungs, are likewise the same fact in different 
shapes, and resolvable into a fact much more com- 
prehensive. 

If, then, the distinction of investigation and 
explanation, or the analytical and synthetical 
process, is to be retained, it can only be nominal 5 
and it is productive of but little if any conve- 
nience. On the contrary, it is calculated to in- 
troduce inaccurate habits of philosophising, and 
holds out a temptation to hypothetical reasoning. 
Having obtained a general law, or theory, we are 
prone to apply it where no induction shows that 
it is applicable ; and perceiving that it would 
account for the observed phenomena, if certain 
things existed, we are apt to assume their exist- 
ence, that we may apply our explanation. Thus 
we know that if the walrus's foot, or the fly's, make 
a vacuum, the pressure of the air will support the 
animal's weight, and hence we assume that the 
vacuum is made. Yet it is clear that we have no 
right whatever to do so ; and that the strict rules 



164 



A DISCOURSE OF 



of induction require us to prove the vacuum before 
we can arrange this fact in the same class with 
the other instances of atmospheric pressure. But 
when we have proved it by observation, it will be 
said we have gained nothing by our general doc- 
trine True ; but all that the science entitles us 
to do is, not to draw facts we are half acquainted 
with under the arbitrary sway of our rule, but to 
examine each fact in all its parts, and bring it 
legitimately within the rule by means of its ascer- 
tained resemblances — that is, classify it with those 
others to which it bears the common relation. 
Induction gives us the right to expect that the 
same result will always happen from the same 
action operating in like circumstances ; but it is of 
the essence of this inference that the similarity be 
first shown. 

It may be worth while to illustrate this further,, 
as it is an error very generally prevailing, and 
leads to an exceedingly careless kind of inquiry. 
The fundamental rule of inductive science is, that 
no hypothesis shall be admitted — that nothing 
shall be assumed merely because, if true, it would 
explain the facts. Thus the magnetic theory of 
iEpinus is admitted by all to be admirably con- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



165 



sistent with itself, and to explain all the pheno- 
mena — that is, to tally exactly with the facts 
observed. But there is no proof at all of the 
accumulation of electrical or magnetic fluid at the 
one pole, and other fundamental positions ; on 
the contrary the facts are rather against them : 
therefore, the theory is purely gratuitous ; and 
although it would be difficult to find any other, 
on any subject, more beautiful in itself, or more 
consistent with all the phenomena, it is universally 
rejected as a mere hypothesis, of no use or value 
in scientific research. The inductive method con- 
sists in only admitting those things which the 
facts prove to be true, and excludes the supposing 
things merely because they square with the facts. 
Whoever makes such suppositions upon observing 
a certain number of facts, and then varies those 
suppositions when new facts come to his know- 
ledge, so as to make the theory tally with the 
observation — whoever thus goes on touching and 
retouching his theory each time a new fact is 
observed which does not fall within the original 
proposition, is a mere framer of hypotheses, not 
an inductive inquirer — a fancier, and not a philo- 
sopher. 



166 



A DISCOURSE OF 



Now, this being the undoubted rule, does not the 
course of those fall exactly within it, who, having 
upon a certain class of phenomena, built a conclu- 
sion legitimately and by strict induction, employ 
that conclusion to explain other phenomena, which 
they have not previously shown to fall within the 
same description ? Take the example of the 
Torricellian vacuum. Having by that experiment 
proved the weight of the atmosphere, we have a 
right to conclude that a tube filled with water 
forty feet high would have a vacuum in the upper- 
most seven feet — because we know the relative 
specific gravities of water and mercury, and might 
predict from thence that the lighter fluid would 
stand at the height of thirty-three feet ; and this 
conclusion we have a right to draw, without any 
experiments to ascertain the existence of a vacuum 
in the upper part of the tube. But we should 
have no right whatever to draw this conclusion, 
without ascertaining the specific gravities of the 
two fluids : for if we did, it would be assuming 
that the two facts belonged to the same class. So 
respecting the power of the walrus or the fly to 
walk up a vertical plane. We know the effects 
of exhausting the air between any two bodies, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



167 



and leaving the external atmosphere to press 
against them : they will cohere. But if from 
thence we explain the support given to the wal- 
rus or the fly without examining their feet, and 
ascertaining that they do exhaust or press out the 
air — if, in short, we assume the existence of a 
vacuum under their feet, merely because were 
there a vacuum the pressure of the air would pro- 
duce the cohesion, and thus account for the phe- 
nomena — we really only propound a hypothesis. 
We suppose certain circumstances to exist, in 
order to classify the fact with other facts actually 
observed, and the existence of which circumstances 
is necessary, in order that the phenomena may be 
reducible under the same head. 

There is no reason whatever for asserting that 
this view of the subject restricts the use of induc- 
tion by requiring too close and constant a refer- 
ence to actual observation. The inductive prin- 
ciple is this — that from observing a number of 
particular facts, we reason to others of the same 
kind — that from observing a certain thing to hap- 
pen in certain circumstances, we expect the same 
thing to happen in the like circumstances. This 
is to generalize ; but then this assumes that we 



168 



A DISCOURSE OF 



first show the identity of the facts, by proving the 
similarity of the circumstances. If not, we sup- 
pose or fancy, and do not reason or generalize. 
The tendency of the doctrine that a proposition 
being demonstrated by one set of facts, may be 
used to explain another set, has the effect of 
making us suppose or assume the identity or 
resemblance which ought to be proved. The 
true principle is, that induction is the general- 
izing or classifying of facts by observed resem- 
blances and diversities. 

Nothing here stated has any tendency to 
shackle our experimental inquiries by too rigidly 
narrowing the proof. Thus, although we are not 
allowed to suppose any thing merely because, if 
it existed, other things would be explained ; yet, 
when no other supposition will account for the 
appearances, the hypothesis is no longer gratui- 
tous ; and it constantly happens, that an inference 
drawn from an imperfect induction, and which 
would be, on that state of the facts, unauthorized 
because equivocal and not the only supposition 
on which the facts could be explained, becomes 
legitimate on a further induction, whereby we 
show that, though the facts first observed might 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



169 



be explained by some other supposition, yet those 
facts newly observed could to no other supposi- 
tion be reconciled. Thus, the analytical experi- 
ment on the constitution of water, by passing- 
steam over red hot iron, is not conclusive, be- 
cause, although it tallies well with the position 
that water consists of oxygen and hydrogen, yet 
it would also tally with another supposition, that 
those gases were produced in the process and 
not merely separated from each other ; so that 
neither oxygen nor hydrogen existed in the water 
any more than acid and water exist in coal and 
wood, but only their elements, and that, like the 
acid and water, the products of the destructive 
distillation of those vegetable substances, the 
oxygen and hydrogen, were compounded, and 
in fact produced by the process. But when, 
besides the analytical, we have the synthetical ex- 
periments of Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Priestley* — 

* Dr. Priestley drew no conclusion of the least value from his 
experiments. But Mr. Watt, after thoroughly weighing them, by 
careful comparison with other facts, arrived at the opinion that 
they proved the composition of water. This may justly be said to 
have been the discovery of that great truth in chemical science. I 
have examined the evidence, and am convinced that he was the 
first discoverer, in point of time, although it is very possible that 

I 



170 



A DISCOURSE OF 



when we find that by burning the two gases in 
a close vessel, they disappear, and leave a weight 
of water equal to their united weights — we have 
a fact not reconcilable to any other supposition, 
except that of the composition of this fluid. It is 
as when, in solving a problem, we fix upon a 
point in one line, curved or straight, because it 
answers one of the conditions — it may be the 
right point, or it may not, for all the other points 
of the line equally answer that condition ; but 
when we also show that the remaining conditions 
require the point to be in another line, and that 
this other intersects the former in the very point 
we had assumed, then no doubt can exist, and 
the point is evidently the one required, none other 
fulfilling all the conditions. 

We have used the words analytical and synthe- 
tical as applicable to the experiments of resolu- 
tion and composition; and in this sense these 
terms are strictly correct in reference to inductive 
operations. But the use of the terms analysis 
and synthesis as applicable to the processes of 

Mr. Cavendish may have arrived at the same truth from his own 
experiments, without any knowledge of Mr. Watt's earlier process 
of reasoning. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



171 



induction — the former being the investigation of 
truths by experiment or observation, and the 
latter the explaining other facts by means of the 
truths so ascertained — is by no means so correct, 
and rests upon an extremely fallacious analogy, 
if there be indeed any analogy, for identity, or 
even resemblance, there is none. The terms are 
borrowed from mathematical science, where they 
denote the two kinds of investigation emplo}^ed 
in solving problems and investigating theorems. 
When, in order to solve a problem, we suppose a 
thing done which we know not how to do, we 
reason upon the assumption that the prescribed 
conditions have been complied with, and proceed 
till we find something which we already possess 
the means of doing. This gives us the construc- 
tion ; and the synthetical demonstration consists 
in merely retracing the steps of the analysis. And 
so of a theorem : we assume it to be true, and 
reasoning on that assumption, we are led to some- 
thing which we know from other sources to be true, 
the synthesis being the same operation reversed. 
The two operations consist here, of manifest ne- 
cessity, of the very same steps — the one being the 
steps of the other taken in the reverse order. In 

i 2 



172 



A DISCOURSE OF 



Physics, to make the operations similar to these, 
the same facts should be the ground or compo- 
nent parts of both. In analysis, we should ascend 
not only from particulars to generals, but from 
the same particulars, and then the synthesis would 
be a descent through the same steps to the parti- 
cular phenomena from the general fact. But it 
is a spurious synthesis, unlike the mathematical, 
and not warranted by induction, to prove the pro- 
position by one set of facts, and by that proposi- 
tion to explain — that is, classify — another set, 
without examining it by itself. If we do examine 
it by itself, and find that it is such as the proposi- 
tion applies to, then also is it such as might prove 
the proposition ; and the synthesis is here, as in 
the case of the mathematical investigation, the 
analysis reversed. As far as any resemblance or 
analogy goes, there is even a greater affinity be- 
tween the inductive analysis and the geometrical 
synthesis, than between those operations which 
go by the same name ; and I hardly know any- 
thing in experimental investigation resembling 
the mathematical analysis, unless it be when, from 
observing certain facts, we assume a position, and 
then infer, that if this be true, some other facts 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



173 



must also exist, which we find (from other proofs) 
really do exist. This bears a resemblance rather 
to the analytical investigation than to the compo- 
sition or synthetical demonstration of theorems 
in the ancient geometry. It is not the course 
of reasoning frequently pursued in experimental 
sciences ; but a most beautiful example of it oc- 
curs in the Second Part of Dr. Black's experi- 
ments on Magnesia Alba and Quick Lime, the 
foundation of the modern gaseous chemistry. 

Upon the whole, the use of these terms is apt 
to mislead ; and, for the reasons which have been 
assigned, there seems no solidity in the division 
of inductive inquiry into the two classes.* 

* When this section was written, I had not seen Mr. Stewart's 
learned remarks upon analysis and synthesis in the second volume 
of his Elements, nor was aware of the observations of Dr. Hook, 
quoted by him, and which show a remarkable coincidence with one 
of the observations in the text. Mr. Stewart's speculations do not 
come upon the same ground with mine : but Dr. Hook having 
reversed the use of the terms analysis and synthesis in experi- 
mental science, affords a strong confirmation of the remark which 
I have ventured to make upon the inaccuracy of this application 
of mathematical language. — (See Elem. of Phil, of Human Mind, 
vol. ii. p. 354, 4to.) 



PART THE SECOND. 



OF THE ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY OF 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The uses of studying the science to which our 
inquiries have been directed now demand some 
consideration. These consist of the pleasures 
which attend all scientific pursuits, the pleasures 
and the improvement peculiar to the study of 
Natural Theology, and the service rendered by 
this study to the doctrines of Revelation. 



SECTION I. 

OF THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 

As we have established the position that Na- 
tural Theology is a branch of Inductive Science, 
it follows that its truths are calculated to bestow 
the same kind of gratification which the investi- 



176 



A DISCOURSE OF 



gation and the contemplation of scientific truth 
generally is fitted to give. 

That there is a positive pleasure in such re- 
searches and such views, wholly independent of 
any regard to the advantages derived from their 
application to the aid, of man in his physical 
necessities, is quite undeniable. The ascer- 
taining by demonstration any of the great truths 
in the mathematics, or proving by experiment any 
of the important properties of matter, would 
give a real and solid pleasure, even were it certain 
that no practical use could be made of either the 
one or the other. To know that the square of 
the hypothenuse is always exactly equal to the 
sum of the squares of the sides of a right-angled 
triangle, whatever be its size, and whatever the 
magnitude of the acute angles, is pleasing ; and 
to be able to trace the steps by which the abso- 
lute certainty of this proposition is established is 
gratifying, even if we were wholly ignorant that 
the art of guiding a ship through the pathless 
ocean mainly depends upon it. Accordingly we 
derive pleasure from rising to the contemplation 
of the much more general truth, of which the dis- 
covery of Pythagoras (the 47th proposition of 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



177 



the First Book of Euclid) is but a particular 
case, and which is also applicable to all similar 
triangles, and indeed to circles and ellipses also, 
described on the right-angled triangle's sides ; 
and yet that general proposition is of no use in 
navigation, nor indeed in any other practical art. 
In like manner, the pleasure derived from ascer- 
taining that the pressure of the air and the 
creation of a vacuum alike cause the rise of the 
mercury in the barometer, and give the power to 
flies of walking on the ceiling of a room, is 
wholly independent of any practical use obtained 
from the discovery, inasmuch as it is a pleasure 
superadded to that of contemplating the doctrine 
proved by the Torricellian experiment, which had 
conferred all its practical benefits long before the 
cause of the fly's power was found out. Thus 
again it is one of the most sublime truths in 
science, and the contemplation of which, as mere 
contemplation, affords the greatest pleasure, that 
the same power which makes a stone fall to 
the ground keeps the planets in their course, 
moulds the huge masses of those heavenly bodies 
into their appointed forms, and reduces to per- 
fect order all the apparent irregularities of the 

i 3 



178 



A DISCOURSE OF 



system : so that the handful of sand which for an 
instant ruffles the surface of the lake, acts by the 
same law which governs, through myriads of ages, 
the mighty system composed of myriads of worlds. 
There is a positive pleasure in generalizing facts 
and arguments — in perceiving the wonderful pro- 
duction of most unlike results from a few very 
simple principles — in finding the same powers or 
agents re-appearing in different situations, and 
producing the most diverse and unexpected effects 
— in tracing unexpected resemblances and differ- 
ences — in ascertaining that truths or facts appa- 
rently unlike are of the same nature, and ob- 
serving wherein those apparently similar are 
various : and this pleasure is quite independent 
of all considerations relating to practical applica- 
tion ; nay, the additional knowledge that those 
truths are susceptible of a beneficial application 
gives a further gratification of the like kind to 
those who are certain never to have the oppor- 
tunity of sharing the benefits obtained, and who 
indeed may earnestly desire never to be in the 
condition of being able to share them. Thus, in 
addition to the pleasure received from contem- 
plating a truth in animal physiology, we have 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



179 



another gratification from finding that one of its 
corollaries is the construction of an instrument 
useful in some painful surgical operation. Yet, 
assuredly, we have no desire ever to receive 
advantage from this corollary ; and our scientific 
gratification was wholly without regard to any 
such view. In truth, generalizing — the disco- 
very of remote analogies — of resemblances among 
unlike objects — forms one of the most pleasing 
employments of our faculties in every department 
of mental exertion, from the most severe inves- 
tigation of the mathematician to the lightest 
efforts of the wit. To trace the same equality, or 
other relation between figures apparently unlike, 
is the chief glory of the geometrician ; to bring 
together ideas of the most opposite description, 
and show them in unexpected, yet when suddenly 
pointed out, undeniable connexion, is the very 
definition of wit. Nay, the proposition which we 
have just enunciated is a striking instance of the 
same general truth ; for we have been surveying 
the resemblance, or rather the identity, in one im- 
portant particular of two pursuits, in all other 
respects the most widely remote from each other 
— mathematics and wit. 



180 



A DISCOURSE OF 



If the mere contemplation of scientific truth is 
the source of real gratification, there is another 
pleasure, alike remote from all reference to prac- 
tical use or benefit, and which is obtained by 
tracing the investigations and demonstration — the 
steps that lead analytically to the discovery, and 
synthetically to the proof of those truths. This 
is a source of pleasure, both by giving us the 
assurance that the propositions of generalization 
— the statements of resemblance and diversity — 
are true in themselves, and also by the conscious- 
ness of power which it imparts, and the feeling of 
difficulty overcome which it involves. Yv r c feel 
gratified when we have closely followed the bril- 
liant induction which led Newton to the discovery 
that white is the union of ail colours ; and when 
we have accompanied him in the series of pro- 
found researches, from the invention of a new 
calculus or instrument of investigation, through 
innumerable original geometrical lemmas, to the 
final demonstration that the force of gravitation 
deflects the comet from the tangent of its elliptical 
orbit ; and we feel the gratification, because the 
pursuit of these investigations assures us that 
the marvellous propositions are indeed true — 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



ISl 



because there is a consciousness of man's power 
in being able to penetrate so far into the secrets 
of nature, and search so far into the structure of 
the universe — and because there is a pleasure, 
which we enjoy individually, in having accom- 
plished a task of considerable difficulty. In these 
gratifications, derived from the contemplation 
and the investigation of general laws, consists the 
Pleasure of Science properly so called, and apart 
from all views of deriving particular advantages 
from its application to man's use. 

This pleasure is increased as often as we find 
that any scientific discovery is susceptible of prac- 
tical applications. The contemplation of this 
adaptation is pleasing, independent of any re- 
gard to our own individual advantage, and even 
though we may desire never to be in a con- 
dition to reap benefit from it. We sympathize, 
perhaps, with those who may be so unfortunate 
as to require the aid afforded by such applications 
to relieve and assuage pain ; but the mere know- 
ledge that such a corollary follows from the disco- 
very of the scientific truth is pleasing. Of course 
the gratification is increased, if we know that in- 
dividually we shall profit by it, and we may per- 



182 



A DISCOURSE OF 



haps always more or less contemplate this possibi- 
lity ; but this is a pleasure, properly speaking, of 
a different kind from that which science, as such, 
bestows. 

The branch of science which we are here parti- 
cularly considering differs in no respect from the 
other departments of philosophy in the kind of gra- 
tification which it affords to those who cultivate it. 
Natural Theology, like the other sciences, whether 
physical or mental, bestows upon the student the 
pleasures of contemplation — of generalization ; 
and it bestows this pleasure in an eminent degree. 
To trace design in the productions and in the 
operations of nature, or in those of the human un- 
derstanding, is, in the strictest sense of the word, 
generalization, and consequently produces the same 
pleasure with the generalizations of physical and 
of psychological science. Every part of the fore- 
going reasoning, therefore, applies closely and ri- 
gorously to the study of Natural Theology. Thus, 
if it is pleasing to find that the properties of two 
curves so exceedingly unlike as the ellipse and 
the hyperbola closely resemble each other, or that 
appearances so dissimilar as the motion of the 
moon and the fall of an apple from the tree are 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



183 



different forms of the same fact, it affords a 
pleasure of the same kind to discover that the 
light of the glow-worm and the song of the 
nightingale are both provisions of nature for the 
same end of attracting the animal's mate, and con- 
tinuing its kind — that the peculiar law of attrac- 
tion pervading all matter, the magnitude of the 
heavenly bodies, the planes they move in, and 
the directions of their courses, are all so contrived 
as to make their mutual actions, and the countless 
disturbances thence arising, all secure a perpe- 
tual stability to the system which no other ar- 
rangement could attain. It is a highly pleasing 
contemplation of the self-same kind with those of 
the other sciences to perceive every where design 
and adaptation — to discover uses even in things 
apparently the most accidental — to trace this so 
constantly, that where peradventure we cannot 
find the purpose of nature, we never for a moment 
suppose there was none, but only that we have 
hitherto failed in finding it out — and to arrive at 
the intimate persuasion that all seeming disorder 
is harmony — all chance, design — and that nothing 
is made in vain ; nay, things which in our igno- 
rance we had overlooked as unimportant, or even 



184 



A DISCOURSE OF 



complained of as evils, nil us afterwards with con- 
tentment and delight, when we find that they are 
subservient to the most important and beneficial 
uses. Thus inflammation and the generation of 
matter in a wound we find to be the effort which 
Nature makes to produce new flesh, and effect 
the cure ; the opposite hinges of the valves in the 
veins and arteries are the means of enabling the 
blood to circulate ; and so of innumerable other 
arrangements of the animal economy. So, too, 
there is the highest gratification derived from 
observing that there is a perfect unity, or, as it 
has been called, a personality, in the kind of the 
contrivances in which the universe abounds ; and 
truly this peculiarity of character or of manner, 
as other writers have termed it, affords the same 
species of pleasure which we derive from contem- 
plating general resemblances in the other sciences. 

We may close this branch of the subject with 
the observation that those other sciences have 
often in their turn derived aid from Natural 
Theology, at least from the speculation of Final 
Causes, for which they^ generally speaking, lay 
the foundation, Many discoveries in the physio- 
logy both of animals and plants owe their origin 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



185 



to some arrangement or structure bein< ^marked, 
the peculiar object of which was not L . j> and 
the ascertaining of which led to the knowledge of 
an important truth. The well-known anecdote of 
Harvey related by Mr. Boyle is the best example 
of this which can be given. In his tract on 
Final Causes he thus writes : — " I remember that 
when I asked our famous Harvey, in the only 
discourse I had with him, (which was but a while 
before he died,) what were the things that induced 
him to think of a circulation of the blood, he 
answered me, that when he took notice that the 
valves in the veins of so many parts of the body 
were so placed that they gave free passage to the 
blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage 
of the veinal blood the contrary way, he was 
incited to imagine that so provident a cause as 
Nature had not so placed so many valves without 
design, and no design seemed more probable than 
that since the blood could not well, because of 
the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to 
the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries, 
and return through the veins whose valves did 
not oppose its course that way."* Even the 

* Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things. — 
Works, v. 427. 4to. 



186 



A DISCOURSE OF 



arts have borrowed from the observation of 
the animal economy. Those valves — the hollow 
bones of birds — the sockets of the joints — have 
all furnished suggestions upon which some of 
our most useful machinery is constructed. Nor 
can any abuse arise from this employment of the 
argument, so long as we take care only to let 
it occupy the subordinate place of a suggestor — 
an originator of inquiry — and never suffer it to 
usurp the station of a sole guide, or a substitute 
for that induction which alone can be relied on 
in forming our conclusions. The ancients were 
ignorant of this caution, and would probably have 
rested satisfied with the consideration which only 
set Harvey upon making experiments, instead of 
proving in this way what the argument from Final 
Causes only rendered probable. Hence much of 
what, as we have already explained, Lord Bacon 
has said upon the subject of this speculation, 
abused as it certainly has been in all ages, but 
especially in ancient times. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



187 



SECTION II. 

OF THE PLEASURE AND IMPROVEMENT PECULIAR TO 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

Hitherto we have .only shown that the gratifica- 
tion which the contemplation of scientific truth is 
calculated to bestow belongs to Natural Theology, 
in common with the other branches of Philosophy. 
But there are several considerations which make 
it plain that the pleasure must be greater which 
flows from the speculations of this than any which 
the other sciences confer. 

In the first place, the nature of the truths with 
which Natural Theology is conversant is to be 
considered. They relate to the evidences of 
design, of contrivance, of power, of wisdom, of 
goodness — but let us only say, of design or con- 
trivance. Nothing can be more gratifying to 
the mind than such contemplations : they afford 
great scope to the reasoning powers ; they exer- 
cise the resources of our ingenuity ; they give a 



18S 



A DISCOURSE OF 



nev> r aspect to the most ordinary appearances ; 
the}- impart life as it were to dead matter ; they 
are continually surprising us with novel and un- 
expected proofs of intentions plainly directed to a 
manifest object. If some scoffers and superficial 
persons despise the enthusiasm with which these 
investigations have at times "been pursued, and 
hold the exercise given by them to the inge- 
nuity of inquirers to be rather a play of imagi- 
nation than of reasoning, it is equally unde- 
niable that in some of the most important and 
most practically useful of the sciences, design, so 
far from being a matter of fanciful conjecture, is 
always assumed as incontestable, and the inquiry, 
often with a merely practical view, is confined to 
discovering what the object of the design is. 
Thus, when the physiologist has discovered some 
part of the animal body before unknown, or 
observed some new operation of the known or- 
gans, he never doubts that design exists, and that 
some end is to be answered. This he takes for 
granted without any reasoning ; and he only en- 
deavours to find out what the purpose is — what 
use the part can have — what end the operation is 
intended to accomplish ; never supposing it pos- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



189 



sible that either the part could he created, or the 
function appointed, without an object. The inves- 
tigation conducted upon the assumption of this 
postulate has frequently led to the most brilliant 
discoveries — among others, as we have just seen, 
to by far the most important ever made in physio- 
logical science. For the mere exercise of the 
intellectual faculties, or gratification of scientific 
curiosity,, we may refer to almost all the singular 
phenomena which form the bases of the reasonings 
as to design — the structure of the ear, and still 
more of the eye — the circulation of the blood — 
the physiology of the foetus in the uterus, as con- 
trasted with the economy of the born animal, 
and the prospective contrivances of a system 
winch until the birth is to be wholly useless — 
the structure of the eye and the nictitating mem- 
brane in different birds, and the haw in certain 
quadrupeds — the po^yers of the eye in birds of 
prey — perhaps more than any thing else, the con- 
struction of their cells by bees, according to the 
most certain principles discovered by nien only 
with the help of the most refined analytical calculus. 
The atheist can only deny the wonderful nature of 
such operations of instinct by the violent assump- 



190 



A DISCOURSE OF 



tion that the bee works as the heavenly bodies 
roll, and that its mathematically correct opera- 
tions axe no more to be wondered at than the 
equally mathematically adjusted movements of 
the planets — a truly violent assumption, and espe- 
cially of those who angrily deny that men have 
a soul differing in kind from the sentient prin- 
ciple in the lower animals. 

Secondly. The universal recurrence of the facts 
on which Natural Theology rests deserves to be 
regarded as increasing the interest of this science. 
The other sciences, those of Physics at least, are 
studied only when we withdraw from all ordinary 
pursuits, and give up our meditations to them. 
Those which can only be prosecuted by means of 
experiment can never be studied at all without 
some act of our own to alter the existing state 
of things, and place nature in circumstances 
which force her, by a kind of question, as Lord 
Bacon phrases it, to reveal her secrets. Even 
the sciences which depend on observation have 
their fields spread only here and there, hardly 
ever lying in our way, and not always accessible 
when we would go out of our way to walk in 
them. But there is no place where the evidences 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



191 



of Natural Beligion are not distributed in ample 
measure. It is equally true that those evidences 
continually meet us in all the other branches of 
science. A discovery made in these almost cer- 
tainly involves some new proofs of design in the 
formation and government of the universe. 

Thirdly and chiefly. Natural Theology stands 
far above all other sciences from the sublime and 
elevating nature of its objects. It tells of the 
creation of all things — of the mighty power that 
fashioned and that sustains the universe — of the 
exquisite skill that contrived the wings, and beak, 
and feet of insects invisible to the naked eye — 
and that lighted the lamp of day, and launched 
into space comets a thousand times larger than 
the earth, whirling a million of times swifter than 
a cannon ball, and burning with a heat which a 
thousand centuries could not quench. It exceeds 
the bounds of material existence, and raises us 
from the creation to the Author of Nature. Its 
office is, not only to mark what things are, but 
for what purpose they were made by the infinite 
wisdom of an all-powerful being, with whose ex- 
istence and attributes its high prerogative is to 
bring us acquainted. If we prize, and justly, the 



192 



A DISCOURSE 



delightful contemplations of the other sciences ; 
if we hold it a marvellous gratification to have 
ascertained exactly the swiftness of the remotest 
planets — the number of grains that a piece of 
lead would weigh at their surfaces — and the de- 
gree in which each has become flattened in shape 
by revolving on its axis ; it is surely a yet more 
noble employment of our faculties, and a still 
higher privilege of our nature, humbly, but con- 
fidently, to ascend from the universe to^ its Great 
First Cause, and investigate the unity, the per- 
sonality, the intentions, as well as the matchless 
skill and mighty power of Him who made and 
sustains and moves those prodigious bodies, and 
all that inhabit them. 

Now, all the gratification of which we have 
been treating is purely scientific, and wholly in- 
dependent of any views of practical benefit result- 
ing from the science of Natural Theology. The 
pleasure in question is merely that double grati- 
fication which every science bestows — namely, the 
contemplation of truth, in tracing resemblances 
and differences, and the perception of the evi- 
dence by which that truth is established. Natu- 
ral Theology gives this double pleasure, like all 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



193 



other branches of science — like the mathematics — 
like physics — and would give it if we were beings 
of an order different from man, and whose des- 
tinies never could be affected by the truth or 
the falsehood of the doctrines in question. Nay, 
we may put a still stronger case, one analogous 
to the instance given above of the pleasure de- 
rived from contemplating some fine invention of 
a surgical instrument. Persons of such lives as 
should make it extremely desirable to them that 
there was no God, and no Future State, might 
very well, as philosophers, derive gratification 
from contemplating the truths of Natural Theo- 
logy, and from following the chain of evidence by 
which these are established, and might, in such 
sublime meditation, find some solace to the pain 
which reflection upon the past, and fears of the 
future are calculated to inflict upon them. 

But it is equally certain that the science de- 
rives an interest incomparably greater from the 
consideration that we ourselves, who cultivate it, 
are most of all concerned in its truth — that our 
own highest destinies are involved in the results 
of the investigation. This, indeed, makes it, 
beyond all doubt, the most interesting of the 

K 



194 



A DISCOURSE OF 



sciences, and sheds on the other branches of 
philosophy an interest beyond that which 
otherwise belongs to them, rendering them more 
attractive in proportion as they connect them- 
selves with this grand branch of human know- 
ledge, and are capable of being made subservient 
to its uses. See only in what contemplations the 
wisest of men end their most sublime inquiries ! 
Mark where it is that a Newton finally reposes 
after piercing the thickest veil that envelopes 
nature — grasping and arresting in their course 
the most subtle of her elements and the swiftest — 
traversing the regions of boundless space — ex- 
ploring worlds beyond the solar way — giving out 
the law which binds the universe in eternal order ! 
He rests, as by an inevitable necessity, upon the 
contemplation of the great First Cause, and holds 
it his highest glory to have made the evidence of 
his existence, and the dispensations of his power 
and of his wisdom, better understood by men. 

If such are the peculiar pleasures which apper- 
tain to this science, it seems to follow that those 
philosophers are mistaken who would restrict us 
to a very few demonstrations, to one or two in- 
stances of design, as sufficient proofs of the 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 195 

Deity's power and skill in the creation of the 
world. That one sufficient proof of this kind is 
in a certain sense enough cannot be denied : a 
single such proof overthrows the dogmas of the 
atheist,, and dispels the doubts of the sceptic; 
but is it enough to the gratification of the con- 
templative mind? The great multiplication of 
proofs undeniably strengthens our positions ; nor 
can we ever affirm respecting the theorems in a 
science, not of necessary but of contingent truth, 
that the evidence is sufficiently cogent without 
variety and repetition. But, independently alto- 
gether of this consideration, the gratification is 
renewed by each instance of design which we are 
led to contemplate. Each is different from the 
other. Each step renews our delight. The 
finding that at every step we make in one science, 
and with one object in view, a new proof is added 
to those before possessed by another science, 
affords a perpetual source of new interest and 
fresh enjoyment. This would be true if the 
science in question were one of an ordinary 
description. But when we consider what its 
nature is — how intimately connected with our 
highest concerns — how immediately and neces- 

k2 



196 



A DISCOURSE OF 



sarily leading to the religious adoration of the 
Supreme Being — can we doubt that the perpe- 
tually renewed proofs of his power, wisdom, and 
goodness tend to fix and to transport the mind, 
by the constant nourishment thus afforded to feel- 
ings of pure and rational devotion? It is, in 
truth, an exercise at once intellectual and moral, in 
which the highest faculties of the understanding 
and the warmest feelings of the heart alike par- 
take, and in which not only without ceasing to 
be a philosopher the student feels as a man, but 
in which the more warmly his human feelings are 
excited, the more philosophically he handles the 
subject. What delight can be more elevating, 
more truly worthy of a rational creature's enjoy- 
ment, than to feel, wherever we tread the paths 
of scientific inquiry, new evidence springing up 
around our footsteps — new traces of divine in- 
telligence and power meeting our eye ! We are 
never alone ; at least, like the old Roman, we are 
never less alone than in our solitude. We walk 
with the Deity ; we commune with the great 
First Cause, who sustains at every instant what 
the word of his power made. The delight is 
renewed at each step of our progress, though as 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



197 



far as evidence is concerned we have long ago 
had proof enough. But that is no more a reason 
for ceasing to contemplate the subject in its per- 
petually renovated and varied forms, than it 
would be a reason for resting satisfied with once 
seeing a long lost friend, that his existence had 
been sufficiently proved by one interview. Thus, 
instead of restricting ourselves to the proofs alone 
required to refute atheism or remove scepticism, 
we should covet the indefinite multiplication of 
evidences of design and skill in the universe, as 
subservient in a threefold way to purposes of use 
and of gratification: first, as strengthening the 
foundation whereupon the system reposes; se- 
condly, as conducive to the ordinary purposes of 
scientific gratification, each instance being a fresh 
renewal of that kind of enjoyment ; and thirdly, 
as giving additional ground for devout, pleasing, 
and wholesome adoration of the Great First Cause, 
who made and who sustains all nature. 

It is, therefore, manifest that instead of resting 
satisfied with details and reasons barely sufficient 
to prove the existence of design in the universe, 
the gratification of a laudable scientific curiosity, 
and the proper indulgence of rational devotion, 



198 



A DISCOURSE OF 



require that every occasion should be taken of 
exhibiting those evidences upon which the sys- 
tem of Natural Theology rests. The professed 
treatises upon that science do not suffice for this 
purpose, although they ought unquestionably to 
enter largely, and with very great variety of 
illustration, into the proofs ; but each several 
branch of science, natural and moral, should have 
a constant reference to this, and should never fail 
to apply its peculiar doctrines towards the proof 
and the illustration of the doctrines of Natural 
Theology. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



199 



SECTION III. 

OF THE CONNEXION BETWEEN NATURAL AND 
REVEALED RELIGION. 

The ordinary arguments against Natural Theo- 
logy with which we have to contend are those of 
atheists and sceptics; of persons who deny the 
existence of a First Cause, or who involve the 
whole question in doubt; of persons who think 
they see a balance of reason for denying the 
existence of a Deity, or who consider the rea- 
sons on both sides as so equally poised that they 
cannot decide either way. An objection of a 
very different nature has sometimes proceeded, 
unexpectedly, from a very different quarter — the 
friends of Revelation — who have been known, 
without due reflection, to contend that by the 
light of unassisted reason we can know absolutely 
nothing of God and a Future State. They appear 
to be alarmed lest the progress of Natural Keli- 
gion should prove dangerous to the acceptance of 
Revealed ; lest the former should, as it were, be 



200 



A DISCOURSE OF 



taken as a substitute for the latter. They argue 
as if the two systems were rivals, and whatever 
credit the one gained, were so much lost to the 
other. They seem to think that if any discovery 
of a First Cause and another world were made by 
natural reason, it would no longer be true that 
" life and immortality were brought to light by 
the gospel." Although these reasoners are neither 
the most famous advocates of revelation, nor the 
most enlightened, we yet may do well to show 
the groundlessness of the alarms which they 
would excite. 

1. In the first place, it is worthy of our consi- 
deration that the greatest advocates of Natural 
Theology have always been sincere and even 
zealous Christians. The names of Ray, Clarke, 
Derham, Keill, Paley, attest the truth of this 
assertion. None of these was likely to lend his 
support to any system the evidence of which put 
the outworks of Christianity in jeopardy. Some 
of them, as Clarke and Paley, have signalized 
themselves as strenuous and able defenders of 
the truth of Revelation. Derham actually de- 
livered his celebrated work on the great truths 
of Natural Theology as a series of sermons 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



201 



preached in Bow Church, at a Lecture for the 
promotion of the Christian religion, founded by 
Mr. Boyle. At the same Lecture, in St. Paul's, 
was delivered Dr. Clarke's argument a priori, 
and indeed his whole " Evidence of Natural and 
Revealed Religion," as well as his "Demonstra- 
tion of the Being and Attributes of God ancj 
Dr. Bentley, the first preacher upon that founda- 
tion, delivered in like manner as sermons his 
argument in favour of Natural Religion from the 
structure of the human mind, the animal body, and 
the universe at large. 

This Lecture was expressly founded by Mr. 
Boyle in support of the Christian religion ; and 
no reference to Natural Theology, apart from its 
uses in supporting Revelation, is to be found in 
the terms of the gift. The subject of the eight 
sermons is to be, in the words of the will, " The 
proof of the Christian religion against notorious 
infidels, viz. atheists, theists, Pagans, Jews, and 
Mahometans, not descending lower to any con- 
troversies that are among Christians themselves." 
Yet the great Christian divines whom we have 
named so construed these words as to include a 
proof of Natural Religion among the most essential 

k3 



202 



A DISCOURSE OF 



arguments for Christianity ♦ and almost as many 
of the sermons preached at the Boyle Lecture, 
during the first forty years after its foundation, 
relate to the doctrines of Natural Theology as to 
those of Revelation. So far were the divines of 
that day from holding the two subjects as hostile 
to each other.* 

2. But, secondly, Natural Theology is most 
serviceable to the support of revelation. All the 
soundest arguments in behalf of the latter pre- 
suppose the former to be admitted. Witness the 
profound work of Butler, his " Analogy of Natural 
and Revealed Religion to the Order of Nature," 
the most argumentative and philosophical defence 
of Christianity ever submitted to the world. But 
Lardner and Paley, and all other writers on 
the same side, abound in references to Natural 
Theology, and in the course of their reasonings 
assume its truths as postulates. 

We may suppose that those practised contro- 
versialists and zealous Christians did not make 

* If any one will read the vituperation rather than sermon 
against infidels with which Dr. Bentley commences his discourses 
upon Natural Religion, he will see no reason to doubt the zeal for 
Christianity of that most learned preacher. 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



203 



such assumptions gratuitously. We may safely 
give them credit for not resting their case upon 
more postulates than the exigency of the argu- 
ment required. Such a course if unnecessary 
would have been most unskilful, and might have 
proved dangerous by opening the door to new 
attacks. But they are not peculiar in their view 
of the subject. Boyle and Newton were as sin- 
cerely attached to Christianity as any men in any 
age, and they are likewise the most zealous advo- 
cates of Natural Religion. Lord Bacon, though 
imbued perhaps with a certain degree of preju- 
dice on this subject, but of a philosophical and 
not a polemical origin, distinctly places the truth 
of Natural Eeligion at the entrance of theological 
study, and regards the evidences of Revelation as 
founded upon the previous demonstration of Na- 
tural Theology. "The latter," he says, "is the 
key of the former, and opens our understanding 
to the genuine spirit of the scriptures, but also 
unlocks our belief, so that we may enter upon the 
serious contemplation of the divine Power, the 
characters of which are so deeply graven in the 
works of the creation. " # He elsewhere also lays 

* De Dig. et Aug. lib. i. 



204 



A DISCOURSE OF 



it down as clear that atheism is to be refuted not 
by miracles but by the contemplation of nature, 
and accurately takes the distinction between Reve- 
lation and Natural Religion ; that the former de- 
clares the will of God as to the worship most 
acceptable, while the latter teaches his existence 
and powers, but is silent as to a ritual.* 

3. Accordingly we proceed a step farther, and 
assert, thirdly, that it is a vain and ignorant thing 
to suppose that Natural Theology is not neces- 
sary to the support of Revelation. The latter may 
be untrue, though the former be admitted. It 
may be proved, or allowed, that there is a God, 
though it be denied that he sent any message to 
man, through men or other intermediate agents ; 
as indeed the Epicureans believed in the existence 
of the gods, but held them to keep wholly aloof 
from human affairs, leaving the world, physical 
as well as moral, to itself, without the least inter- 
ference in its concerns.-)- But Revelation cannot 

* De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2. 

f It is singular, too, that this sect inculcated religious duties 
towards the gods, whom nevertheless they neither believed to be 
the creators nor governors of the universe. Cicero says of its 
founder, " De sanctitate, de pietate adversus deos libros scripsit 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



205 



be true if Natural Religion is false, and cannot 
be demonstrated strictly by any argument, or 
established by any evidence without proving or 
assuming the latter. A little attention to the 
subject will clearly prove this proposition. 

Suppose it were shown by incontestable proofs 
that a messenger sent immediately from heaven 
had appeared on the earth ; suppose, to make the 
case more strong against our argument, that this 
messenger arrived in our own days, nay appeared 
before our eyes, and shewed his divine title to have 
his message believed, by performing miracles in 
our presence. No one can by possibility imagine 
a stronger case ; for it excludes all arguments 
upon the weight or the fallibility of testimony ; 
it assumes all the ordinary difficulties in the way 
of Revelation to be got over. Now, even this 
strong evidence would not at -all establish the 
truth of the doctrine promulgated by the mes- 
senger; for it would not show that the story 
he brought was worthy of belief in any one par- 
Epicurus. At quomodo in his loquitur? ut Coruncanum, ut 
Scaevolam, Pontifices maximos te audire dicas." " You would 
think," says he, "to hear him, it was our high-priests des- 
canting upon holiness and piety." 



206 



A DISCOURSE OF 



ticular except Ms supernatural powers. These 
would be demonstrated by his working miracles. 
All the rest of his statement would rest on 
his assertion. But a being capable of working 
miracles might very well be capable of deceiving 
us. The possession of power does not of neces- 
sity exclude either fraud or malice. This mes- 
senger might come from an evil as well as from 
a good being ; he might come from more beings 
than one ; or he might come from one being 
of many existing in the universe. When Chris- 
tianity was first promulgated, the miracles of 
Jesus were not denied by the ancients; but it 
was asserted that they came from evil beings, and 
that he was a magician. Such an explanation 
was consistent with the kind of belief to which 
the votaries of polytheism were accustomed. They 
were habitually credulous of miracles and of di- 
vine interpositions. But their argument was not 
at all unphilosophical. There is nothing whatever 
inconsistent in the power to work miracles being 
conferred upon a man or a minister by a super- 
natural being, who is either of limited power 
himself, or of great malignity, or who is one 
of many such beings. Yet it is certain that 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



207 



no means can be devised for attesting the super- 
natural agency of any one, except such a power 
of working miracles ; therefore, it is plain that 
no sufficient evidence can ever be given by direct 
Revelation alone in favour of the great truths 
of religion. The messenger in question might 
have power to work miracles without end, and 
yet it would remain unproved, either that God 
was omnipotent, and one, and benevolent, or that 
he destined his creatures to a future state, or that 
he had made them such as they are in their present 
state. All this might be true, indeed ; but its truth 
would rest only on the messenger's assertion, and 
upon whatever internal evidence the nature of his 
communication afforded; and it might be false, 
without the least derogation to the truth of the 
fact that he came from a superior being, and pos- 
sessed the power of suspending the laws of nature. 

But the doctrines of the existence of a Deity 
and of his attributes, which Natural Religion 
teaches, preclude the possibility of such ambi- 
guities and remove all those difficulties. We 
thus learn that the Creator of the world is one 
and the same ; and we come to know his attributes, 
not merely of power, which alone the direct com- 



208 



A DISCOURSE OF 



munication by miracles could convey, but of 
wisdom and goodness. Built upon this foun- 
dation, the message of Revelation becomes at once 
unimpeachable and invaluable. It converts every 
inference of reason into certainty, and, above all, 
it communicates the Divine Being's intentions 
respecting our own lot, with a degree of precision 
which the inferences of Natural Theology very 
imperfectly possess. This, in truth, is the chief 
superiority of Revelation, and this is the praise 
justly given to the Gospel in sacred writ — not 
that it teaches the being and attributes of God, 
but that it brings life and immortality to light. 

It deserves, however, to be remarked, in perfect 
consistency with the argument which has here 
been maintained, that no mere revelation, no 
direct message, however avouched by miraculous 
gifts, could prove the faithfulness of the promises 
held out by the messenger, excepting by the 
slight inference which the nature of the message 
might afford. The portion of his credentials 
which consisted of his miraculous powers could 
not prove it. For unless we had first ascertained 
the unity and the benevolence of the being that 
sent him, as those miracles only prove power, 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



209 



lie might be sent to deceive us ; and thus the 
hopes held out by him might be delusions. The 
doctrines of Natural Religion here come to our 
aid; and secure our belief to the messenger of 
one Beings whose goodness they have taught us 
to trust. 

4. In other respects, the services of Natural 
Religion are far from inconsiderable, as subsidiary 
to, and co-operative with, the great help of Reve- 
lation. 1 Thus, were our whole knowledge of the 
Deity drawn from Revelation, its foundation must 
become weaker and weaker as the distance in 
point of time increases from the actual inter- 
position. Tradition, or the evidence of testi- 
mony, must of necessity be its only proof: for 
perpetual miracles must be wrought to give us 
evidence by our own senses. Now, a perpetual 
miracle is a contradiction in terms ; for the ex- 
ception to, or suspension of, the laws of nature 
so often repeated would destroy the laws them- 
selves, and with the laws the force of the excep- 
tion or suspension. Upon testimony, then, all 
Revelation must rest. Every age but the one 
in which the miracles were wrought, and every 
country but the one that witnessed them — in- 



210 



A DISCOURSE OF 



deed, all the people of that country itself save 
those actually present — must receive the proofs 
which they afford of Divine interposition upon 
the testimony of eye-witnesses, and of those to 
whom eye-witnesses told it. Even if the miracles 
were exhibited before all the nations of one age, 
the next must believe upon the authority of tra- 
dition ; and if we suppose the interposition to be 
repeated from time to time, each repetition would 
incalculably weaken its force, because the laws 
of nature, though not wholly destroyed, as they 
must be by a constant violation, would yet lose 
their prevailing force, and each exception would 
become a slighter proof of supernatural agency. 
It is far otherwise with the proofs of Natural 
Religion ; repetition only strengthens and extends 
them. We are by no means affirming that Reve- 
lation would lose its sanction by lapse of time, as 
long as it had the perpetually new and living evi- 
dence of Natural Religion to support it. We are 
only shewing the use of that evidence to Revela- 
tion, by examining the inevitable consequences 
of its entire removal, and seeing how ill supported 
the truths of Revelation would be, if the prop were 
withdrawn which they borrow from Natural Theo- 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



211 



logy ; for then they would rest upon tradition 
alone.* 

In truth, it is with Natural Religion as with 
many of the greatest blessings of our sublunary 
lot: they are so common, so habitually present 
to and enjoyed by us, that we become insensible 
of their value, and only estimate them aright 
when we lose them, or fancy them lost. Accus- 
tomed to handle the truths of Revelation in con- 
nexion with, and in addition to, those of Natural 
Theology, and never having experienced any 
state of mind in which we were without the latter, 
we forget how essential they are to the former. 
As we are wont to forget the existence of the air we 
constantly breathe until put in mind of it by some 
violent change threatening suffocation, so it re- 
quires a violent fit of abstraction to figure to our- 
selves the state of our belief in Revelation were the 
lights of natural religion withdrawn. The ex- 
istence and attributes of a God are so familiarly 
proved by every thing around us, that we can 
hardly picture to ourselves the state of our belief 
in this great truth, if we only knew it by the 
testimony borne to miracles, which, however au- 
* Note V. 



212 A DISCOURSE OF 

thentic, were yet wrought in a remote age and 
distant region.* 

5. The use of Natural Theology to the believer 
in Revelation is equally remarkable in keeping 
alive the feelings of piety and devotion. As this 
topic has occurred under a former head, it is 
only to be presented here in close connexion with 
Revealed Religion. It may be observed, then, that 
even the inspired penmen have constant recourse 
to the views which are derived from the contem- 
plation of nature when they would exalt the 
Deity by a description of his attributes, or incul- 
cate sentiments of devotion towards him. " How 
excellent," says the Psalmist, " is thy name in all 
the earth; thou hast set thy glory above the 
heavens. I will consider the heavens, even the 
work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars 
which thou hast ordained." See also that singu- 
larly beautiful poem the 139th Psalm ; and the 
Rook of Job, from the 38th to the 41st chapter. 

It is remarkable how little is to be found of 

* Mr. Locke has said, upon a similar question, <( He that takes 
away Reason to make way for Revelation puts out the light of 
both ; and does much about the same as if he would persuade a 
man to put out his eyes ; the better to receive the remote light of an 
invisible star by a telescope." — (Human Understanding, iv. 19, 4.) 



NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



213 



particularity and precision in any thing that has 
been revealed to us respecting the nature of the 
Godhead. For the wisest purposes it has pleased 
Providence to veil in awful mystery almost all the 
attributes of the Ancient of Days beyond what 
natural reason teaches. By direct interposition, 
through miraculous agency, we become acquainted 
with his will, and are made more certain of his 
existence ; but his peculiar attributes are nearly 
the same in the volume of nature and in that of 
his revealed word. 



N O T E S. 



N OTES. 



Note I. — Page 11. 
Of the Classification of the Sciences. 

I am abundantly sensible, not only, as is stated in the 
text, bow imperfect all such classifications must be, but 
that grave objections may be urged against the one I have 
adopted, and particularly against the threefold division of 
physical, psychological, and ethical or moral. It may be 
said that one part of the moral branch of Natural Theo- 
logy belongs to psychology — namely, the arguments 
drawn from the nature of the mind in favour of a future 
state ; and that this part ought therefore to have been 
classed with the second division of the ontological branch 
— namely, the psychological. But it must be borne in 
mind that the two first divisions, comprising the ontolo- 
gical branch, are confined to the doctrine of existences 
— the investigation of the Deity's existence and attri- 
butes ; while the whole of the third division, or second 
brancb, relates to the prospects of man with respect to 
his soul ; and consecuently, although the arguments 
respecting these prospects are partly of a psychological 
nature, yet they relate to the future, and not at all to the 
past or present— not at all to the doctrine of existence 

L 



218 



NOTES. 



or attributes. This is therefore a sufficiently distinct 
ground for the separation. In all such classifications 
we should be guided by views of convenience, rather 
than by any desire to attain perfect symmetry; and that 
arrangement may be best suited to a particular purpose 
which plants the same things in one order, and separates 
them and unites them in one way, when an arrangement 
which should dispose those things differently might be 
preferable, if we had another purpose to serve. Thus 
the three divisions of physics, psychology, and morals 
may be convenient for the purposes of Natural Theology, 
and yet it may not so well suit the purposes of general 
science ; although I own my opinion to be in favour of 
that classification for such general purposes also, keeping 
always in mind that whatever portion of moral science 
(using the term in its more ordinary sense) belongs to 
ontology comes within the second, and not the third, 
subdivision, and that the third deals with deontology 
alone. 

The various classifications which, in ancient as well 
as modern times, have been made of the sciences, are 
well calculated to illustrate the difficulty of a perfect 
arrangement. The Greek philosophers distinguished 
them into physics, ethics, and logic. Under the first 
head was comprehended both the nature of mind and 
of the Deity ; consequently, under physics were classed 
what we now term psychology and theology, as well as 
natural philosophy. Mr. Locke mainly adopted the 
same order when he ranged the objects of science into 
physical, practical, and logical (<jwiX7j, ifpctKrixyj, cnj- 



NOTES. 



219 



l^ziujriyiYj, or Aoywvj) ; or, 1. Things in themselves know- 
able, whether God himself, angels, spirits, bodies ; or 
their affections, as number, figure, &c. 2. Actions, as 
they depend upon us in order to happiness ; and 3. The 
use of signs, in order to knowledge. Thus, like the 
Greek philosophers, he classed natural philosophy, psy- 
chology, and theology under one head ; but as he only 
stated ethics to be " the most considerable of the second 
head," it may be doubtful whether or not he included 
under it any practical application of the natural branches 
of the first head. One thing, too, is quite clear in this 
arrangement, — that pure mathematics becomes part of 
the science of ontology — that is, of existences, natural 
and mental ; and yet it bears a more close relation to the 
third, or logical division. It certainly appears somewhat 
violent to class fluxions with anatomy, metallurgy with 
psychology, and entomology with theology ; while we 
make separate heads of ethics and logic. But yet more 
violent is M. Turgot's classification, by which he ranges, 
under the head of physical sciences, not only natural 
philosophy and metaphysics by name, but also logic and 
history. To thus classing history there is, indeed, a 
double objection. Not only is it doing unnecessary vio- 
lence to common language, to make that which bears no 
exclusive relation to natural objects a part of physics, 
but to make history a science at all is perhaps yet more 
objectionable, unless in the sense in which inductive 
science is deemed historical by Lord Bacon — being con- 
sidered by him as the history of facts. But this, too, is 
incorrect ; for the history or record of facts is only the 

l2 



220 



NOTES. 



foundation of inductive science, which consists in the 
comparison, or reasoning from the comparison, of these 
facts, and marking their differences and resemblances ; 
whereas history is applicable to all events and all 
sciences, being merely the record of things that have 
happened, of whatever kind, and implies no reasoning 
or comparing at all. Why is poetry, music, painting, 
omitted in such an arrangement as that of Turgot ? 
They are as much sciences as history. 

Lord Bacon's own scientific classification is certainly 
not distinguished by peculiar felicity. He divides science 
into three parts, according as its object is the Deity, Man, 
or External Nature, naming these branches — Nat al 
Theology, Human Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy. 
Hence, while intellectual and moral philosophy are sepa- 
rated from theology, they are both classed with anatomy 
and medicine ; while optics and acoustics, merely from 
their relation to the human eye and the human ear, are 
ranged under the same head with ethics, and separated 
from natural philosophy. Hence, too, the chemical 
nature of the blood and bones of man is made one part 
of one division — Human Philosophy; while the che- 
mical nature of the blood and bones of all other animals 
is ranged under another head — Natural Philosophy. As 
for logic and the mathematics, they are treated as a kind 
of appendix to physics, rather than as deserving the 
name of sciences. 



NOTES. 



221 



Note II.— Page 52. 

Of the Psychological Argument from Final Causes. 

Dr. Clarke maintains that the evidences of design 
are much more to be traced in the natural than in the 
moral world ; but he plainly means by this proposition > 
not so much to compare the proofs of Divine wisdom 
exhibited in the phenomena of the material with those 
exhibited in the phenomena of the intellectual world, as 
to show that the designs or intentions of the Deity are 
more easily perceived in the arrangements of the world 
with which we are most conversant, than his plans for 
our happiness, and his general intentions respecting our 
fate, are to be inferred from moral considerations. It is, 
however, to be remarked that, like all other reasoners 
upon Natural Theology, Dr. Clarke confines his attention 
entirely to physical, and never adverts to psychological, 
proofs. 

Mr. Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, has 
interspersed with his reasonings upon the constitution of 
the affections and feelings, reflections upon the purposes 
to which they are subservient ; and Mr. Stewart's writ- 
ings afford frequent instances of his attention having 
been alive to the soundness of the same speculation. 
Indeed, no one who had the accurate and just views of 
the nature of the sentient principle, and the steady con- 
viction of its separate and immaterial nature, which 
prevail through all his writings, could fail to perceive 
the application of the argument a posteriori to our 



222 



NOTES. 



mental constitution. But these indications of this ad- 
mirable writer's attention to the subject are accidental, 
and scattered through his works ; and it is exceedingly 
to be regretted, nor, indeed, very easily to be explained, 
that he should have entirely omitted all reference to the 
constitution of our mental faculties in the otherwise full 
and able treatise upon Natural Religion which forms so 
large a part — above one-third — of his ' Philosophy of the 
Active Powers.' With the exception of a single remark 
(vol. ii., p. 48), and that only upon the adaptation of 
our faculties to our external circumstances, and a quo- 
tation from Locke, which relates more to the bodily than 
to the mental powers, there occurs nothing whatever 
upon this important part of the subject in that excellent 
work, where it would have been so peculiarly appro- 
priate. 

Tins silence of modern writers upon Natural Theology 
is easily accounted for by the same consideration to 
which Dr. Reid has referred in explaining how the 
modern sceptics have admitted the existence of appear- 
ances of design in the universe, and denied what he 
terms the major proposition — that design may be traced 
by its effects ; while the ancient sceptics, admitting the 
latter proposition, denied the former. He considers this 
as owing to the great discoveries in physics made in 
modern times ; and to the same cause may be ascribed 
the disposition of Natural Theologians to confine their 
attention to the evidences afforded by the material world. 
The ancients, on the other hand, whose progress in Na- 
tural Philosophy was extremely limited, bestow more 



NOTES. 



223 



attention, and with considerably greater success, upon 
Intellectual Philosophy; and accordingly we find that 
they drew their arguments a posteriori for the exist- 
ence of design in the universe as much from moral as 
from physical considerations. 

The discussion held by Socrates with Aristodemus, as 
recorded by Xenophon, is well known. After enume- 
rating the various convenient arrangements of the bodily 
organs, he adds — Ov Towvv ^ovov ypxEffe Tia Qsco row crcd- 

tyvyjiv xpccficryv Too avOpcuTtuo £V£§v<te' t'ivo; yap aWou 
tpoou 4 >v X y ) rtpwTa. |U,£v Osouv, Tovv fa y^yio'T'cc xai xaXXicrta 
cvvTatavrcvv, rpftrftcu ofi sicrt; ?i de <fyv\ov aXXo y av- 
Qpcoirot, §£0v$ Q £ pair ev ova ; voice $£ "^vyy Tys avQpwifivYjs 

ITCCCVCOT'EpCC TTpO^UXXaT'TECrQai, Yj Xi\hOV , Yj 01^/0$, Yj ^/1%Y), 

QaXtfYj, Yj vooroig EitiKOVpYjo-ai, y) pcufrYjV acxYjG-CLi, Yj itpog 

lLCt§Yi<TlV BKrfOVYjO'CCl, Yj 0(TCC av aXOVCY], Yj l$Yj, Yj \LO$Yj, IKCC- 

yoj r f£pcc £crTi dia^EpvYjC-Qai ; — " Nor has the Deity been 
satisfied with taking care of the body alone ; he has 
implanted in man what is afar greater work to have 
made — a most excellent soul ; for what other animal 
possesses a mind that can perceive the existence of the 
Gods by whom all these vast and fair works have been 
formed ? What other creature than man worships those 
Gods ? What other intelligence is superior to mans in 
providing against hunger, and thirst, and cold, and 
heat ? or in curing diseases, or in exercising strength, 
or in cultivating learning, or in storing up the recollec- 
tion of things heard, and seen, and learnt ?"* — It may 
* Xen. Memor. I. iv. 13. 



224 



NOTES. 



be observed here, in passing, that Mr. Stewart, who 
refers to this passage, has adopted the paraphrastic 
translation by Mrs. Fielding, and it is extremely un- 
like the original. Mr. Stewart justly praises the " almost 
divine simplicity " of the whole conversation, which is 
a just eulogy ; but the translation, although well written, 
little resembles the Greek in that particular. The one 
I have here given is at least faithful. 

In like manner, the discussion with Euthydemus, after 
showing the goodness of the Gods in adapting all things 
to man's use, closes with mentioning the senses given us 
to enjoy those gifts of external nature, and, lastly, the 
use of reason. To£s koci \oyi<r[j<ov '(]\mv sy^vvai, &c. &c. 
— " They have implanted reason in our nature, whereby 
we inquire touching external things ; and, arguing and 
remembering, ive learn the uses of each, and hit upon 
many contrivances for attaining good and avoiding evil. 
Have they not also given us the gift of speech, by which 
we can communicate mutually all we have learnt, and 
thus instruct each other, and make laws, and regulate 
civil polity 

Plato pursues the same course of reasoning. We 
may refer particularly to the tenth and twelfth books of 
the treatise De Lego. Thus, towards the end of the 
latter book, he states the argument for the Deity's exist- 
ence as twofold — the nature of the mind, and the order 
of the worldly system. The first of his reasons is drawn 
from considering the qualities of the mind ; its greater 
antiquity than that of the body and its immortality; 
* Xen. Memor. IV. iii. 11. 



NOTES. 



225 



for the Platonists certainly considered immortality to be 
so much of the essence of mind as to deduce from thence, 
as the less clear proposition, the existence of a Deity. 

The Stoics reasoned in like manner, with an equal 
regard to mental and to natural phenomena. Epictetus, 
after deducing the inference of design from the adapta- 
tions of sensible objects, as of the eye to light, adds, 
correctly and philosophically, that " the constitution of 
the understanding, whereby it not only receives impres- 
sions through the senses, but also deals with the ideas 
thus received, and combines or composes something out 
of them, proceeding from things that are near to things 
quite remote, proves the existence of an Artificer ; since 
things carrying such marks of contrivance could not," 
he contends, " exist spontaneously, and without design.' 5 * 

The same train of reasoning is followed by Cicero in 
all those parts of his writings in which he treats of the 
existence of a Deity. Thus the famous passage so often 
quoted from the treatise De Natura Deorum, ends with 
a reference to our mental constitution, although this 
part of it is not so frequently attended to. " An vero si 
domum magnam, pulchramque videris, non possis adduci 
ut etiam si dominum non videas muribus illam et mus- 
telis sedificatam putes; tantum vero ornatum mundi, 
tantam varietatem pulchritudinemque rerum celestium, 
tantam vim et magnitudinum maris atque terrarum si 
tuum ac non deorum immortalium domicilium putes, 
nonne plane desipere videare ?" Thus far as to sensible 
objects. But he proceeds, " Aliud a terra sumsimus, aliud 
* Epict. Enchir. i. 6. 

L 3 



226 



NOTES. 



ab humore, aliud ab igne, aliud ab aere eo quem spiritu 
ducimus : illud autem quod vincit hsec omnia, rationem 
dico et si placet, pluribus verbis, mentem, consilium, 
cogitationem, prudentiam ubi invenimus? unde sustu- 
limus?*" 

And again, in the same book, after speaking at large 
of the structure of the body, and the uses to which its 
various parts are adapted, he adds, " Jam vero animum 
ipsum, memtemque hominis, rationem, consilium, pru- 
dentiam, qui non divina cura perfecta esse perspicit, is 
his ipsis rebus mihi videtur carere." He proceeds to 
show how great a gift reason is from its productions : 
<c Ex quo scientia intelligitur quam vim habeat, qualis 
sit, qua ne in deo quidem est res ulla prsestantior 
and he closes with the well-known passage in praise of 
eloquence f . 

In the Tusculan Questions he alludes to mind in a dif- 
ferent manner. After going through the various pro- 
visions made for human enjoyment in the economy of 
nature, he adds, " Sic mentem hominis quamvis cum 
non videas ut deum non vides, tamen ut deum agnoscis 
ex operibus ejus, sic ex memoria rerum et inventione et 
edentate motus omnique pulchritudine virtutis, vim 
divinam mentis agnoscitoj." 

The course of the argument in which he is engaged in 
this first part of his work, the immortality of the soul, 
leads him to use the phenomena of its faculties for the 
purpose of illustrating its separate existence ; and, there- 

* De Nat. Deor. ii. 6. f Ibid. ii. 59. 

t Tusc. Qu. i. 29. 



NOTES. 



227 



fore, he only enumerates the arrangements of the natural 
world as proofs of Divine agency, and gives those proofs 
not as the main object of the argument, but as introduc- 
tory to his statement of the soul's independent nature. 

In these speculations of the ancient philosophers, we 
cannot find any process of strict inductive reasoning ; 
and, accordingly, the facts are not turned to the best 
account for the purposes of the argument. But this 
defect appears, at the least, as much in the physical as 
in the psychological portion of the reasoning. Indeed, 
the latter comes more near to our own philosophy ; and 
certainly we must admit that those old writers upon 
Natural Theology, in the place which they assigned to 
intellectual phenomena, pursued a more sound and con- 
sistent method of philosophising, than the moderns have 
done when speculating upon the same subject. 



Note III.— Page 80. 

Of the Doctrine of Cause and Effect. 

The argument deduced by sceptical writers from Mr. 
Hume's doctrine respecting causation has tended to 
bring some discredit upon the doctrine itself, by raising 
a prejudice against it. The bad use, however, which is 
made of a sound principle is not fairly a matter of charge 
against that principle. The only question is whether or 
not the principle be just in itself ; and it cannot be just 
if legitimate reasoning can deduce from it an absurd con- 



228 



NOTES. 



sequence. A dangerous consequence, liow rigorously 
soever following from it, would of course form no reason 
against its reception, though it might justly be made the 
ground of examining very narrowly the foundations upon 
which the doctrine itself rested. 

Mr. Stewart, in a valuable and learned note to the 
" Philosophy of the Human Mind," (vol i., note D,) 
has brought together the authorities, which have all 
more or less not only countenanced, but even forestalled 
Mr. Hume in his position — that we know nothing of cau- 
sation except by observing a constant junction between 
two events or two facts. This is unquestionably true. 
We expect that heat being applied to combustible bo- 
dies, they will take fire; and that air being excluded 
they will cease to burn. We expect this, because be- 
tween the application of heat and the ignition of the 
heated body, between the exclusion of air and the ex- 
tinction of the fire, we have constantly observed the 
relation of sequence — the one event being always fol- 
lowed closely by the other. The inference which 
forms the ground of this expectation, forms the ground 
of our belief that the one event occasions the other — 
that there is between the two a connexion beyond the 
mere relation of junction and sequence — and that the 
one, the preceding event, exerts an influence, a force, a 
power, over the other, and produces the other. 

This constant conjunction, therefore, in point of fact, 
is the ground of our belief, and is the origin of our ideas 
of causality or causation. So far we must admit the 
doctrine in question. That it is the only ground of the 



NOTES. 



229 



belief, and the only origin of the idea, may admit of some 
doubt. This is the point on which turns the connexion 
between the science of Natural Theology and the contro- 
versy we are now r referring to ; and therefore it deserves 
some consideration in the present note. 

1 . The mere constant and unvarying succession of two 
events would not of itself be sufficient to make us, even 
in popular language, denominate the one a cause of the 
other. Light uniformly succeeds dark — one o'clock 
always follows twelve ; but no man ever thought of call- 
ing or of deeming night to be the cause of day, or noon 
of afternoon*. Another and a very important experiment 
or observation is required before we pronounce the suc- 
cessive or conjoined events to be related one to the other 
as cause and effect. Not only must the second event 
always have been found to follow the first, but the 
second must never have been observed without the first 
preceding it, or at least without some other event pre- 
ceding it — in which case the causation is predicated 
alike of both those preceding events. Thus, the clock 
pointing to one is not reckoned the effect of its having 
previously pointed to twelve; but it is reckoned the 
effect of a certain mechanism, namely, a spring un- 
folding itself, because if the spring is prevented from 
relaxing, the hand no longer points ; and so it is also 

* Mr. Stewart's observation, that day follows night as much as 
night fullows day, makes no difference in this illustration : for we 
may suppose the case of a person seeing day for the first time, or 
twelve o'clock for the first time, and the conclusion in the text 
would still hold good. 



230 



NOTES. 



reckoned the effect of a weight pulling a cord, because, 
when that weight is stopped in its descent, the whole 
machinery stops. 

2. But we derive not our notion of causality from even 
this double proof — the positive and negative combined — 
the two observations that one event always follows the 
other, and that it ceases when the other ceases. This 
of itself would only tell us the fact, that when one event 
exists the other exists immediately afterwards and not 
otherwise. Our minds form, whether we will or no, 
another idea — not merely that of constant connexion or 
succession, but of the one exerting a power over the other 
by an inherent force ; and this is the idea of causation. 
Whence do we derive it ? I apprehend only from our 
consciousness. We feel that we have a will and a power 
— that we can move a limb, and affect by our own 
powers, excited after our own volition, a change upon 
external objects. Now from this consciousness we derive 
the idea of power, and we transfer this idea and the rela- 
tion on which it is founded between our own will and the 
change produced, to the relations between events wholly 
external to ourselves — assuming them to be connected, 
as we feel our volition and our movements are mutually 
connected. 

If it be said that this idea by no means involves that 
of necessary connexion, nothing can be more certain. 
The whole is a question of fact — of contingent truth. 
J ust as the world might be so constituted that heat ap- 
plied should not ignite, nor air excluded extinguish — 
so might our volition cease to make our limbs move, as it 



-NOTES. 



231 



does cease in paralysis. As it is, and because our will has 
hitherto had the power to move our limbs, we have ac- 
quired the idea of power and of causation. But if it had 
always been otherwise, and that no connexion of succes- 
sion had ever existed between our volition and our 
movements, I do not see how the idea of power or caus- 
ality could ever have been obtained by us from any 
observation of the sequence of events. The idea of 
design or contrivance, in like manner, must have been 
wanting to us ; and hence, I caunot understand how, 
but for the consciousness of power, we could ever have 
been led to the belief in the existence of a First Cause. 
This is another, and, to my mind, a very strong, addi- 
tional reason for resting the evidences of Natural Theo- 
logy upon the argument a posteriori alone. 

That they are greatly in error who confound, as has 
been too common, causation with necessary connexion, 
and who deny the existence of the relation of causality 
merely because the relation is contingent and not neces- 
sary, is sufficiently manifest. Our ideas of power and of 
causation are solid and well founded, although they only 
refer to a power or a causation which may or may not 
exist. That one event causes another may be a propo- 
sition quite true, to which we affix a precise and definite 
meaning, and which we have learnt from observation 
and from consciousness, although the order of nature 
might easily have been so constituted as that the two 
events should never have been found in sequence. At 
present the order of nature connects them, and we affirm 
that there exists the relation of cause and effect — a rela- 



232 



NOTES. 



tion contingent, however, and not necessary. Of neces- 
sary causation we can by no possibility know any thing; 
but causation may be real enough though contingent. 



Note IV.— Page 57, 107. 

Of the u Systeme de la Nature" and the Hypothesis 
of Materialism. 

There is no book of an atheistical description which 
has ever made a greater impression than the famous 
Systeme de la Nature. It bears the impression of Lon- 
don, 1780, but was manifestly printed in France; also, 
it purports to be written by Mirabaud, secretary of the 
Academic Franchise; and in a prefatory advertisement 
by the supposed editor, who pronounces a great panegyric 
upon the work, enough appears to engender doubts of 
Mirabaud having been its author. He died in 1760; 
and it was twenty years before the work appeared — 
found, says the writer, among a collection of manuscripts 
made by a Ct savant curieux cle rassembler des pro- 
ductions de ce genre." Robinet, the author of another 
work of similar tendency, called De la Nature, has been 
at different times said to be its author, without any proof, 
or indeed probability ; but the general opinion now 
ascribes it to the Baron d'Holbach, aided, in all pro- 
bability, by Diderot, Helvetius, and other members of 
the freethinking society, who frequented the Baron's 



NOTES. 



233 



house, and who used to complain of Voltaire's excess of 
religious principle, not unfrequently ridiculing him for 
his fanaticism. Mirabaud, upon whom this publication 
most unjustifiably charges the book, by placing his name 
in the title-page without any doubt expressed, and 
reserving the doubts for the preface, was a man of unim- 
peachable integrity and amiable disposition. He had 
been educated in the College of the Jesuits, and afterwards 
was preceptor to some branches of the royal family; he 
died at the age of eighty-five, universally esteemed for 
his unblemished character, his strict probity, and his 
attractive manners. The Diderots and Grimms, though 
not perhaps persons of abandoned life, were very far 
from attaining such praise : indeed, the licentious works 
that proceeded from Diderot's pen attest his deficiency, 
at least, in one branch of morals. 

It is impossible to deny the merits of the Systeme 
de la Nature. The work of a great writer it unques- 
tionably is ; but its merit lies in the extraordinary elo- 
quence of the composition, and the skill with which 
words substituted for ideas, and assumptions for proofs, 
are made to pass current, not only for arguments against 
existing beliefs, but for a new system planted in their 
stead. As a piece of reasoning, it never rises above a 
set of plausible sophisms — plausible only as long as the 
ear of the reader being filled with sounds, his attention 
is directed away from the sense. The chief resource of 
the writer is to take for granted the thing to be proved, 
and then to refer back to his assumption as a step in the 
demonstration, while he builds various conclusions upon 



234 



NOTES. 



it, as if it were complete. Then he declaims against a 
doctrine seen from one point of view only, and erects 
another for our assent, which, besides being liable to the 
very same objections, has also no foundation whatever to 
rest upon. The grand secret, indeed, of the author goes 
even further in petitione principii than this ; for we 
oftentimes find, that in the very substitute which he has 
provided for the notions of belief he would destroy, there 
lurks the very idea which he is combating, and that his 
idol is our own faith in a new form, but masked under 
different words and phrases. 

The truth of these statements we are now to examine ; 
but first it may be fitting to state why so much atten- 
tion is bestowed upon this work. The reason is, that its 
bold character has imposed on multitudes of readers, 
seducing some by its tone of confidence, but intimidating 
others by its extreme audacity. It is the only* work of 
any consideration wherein atheism is openly avowed and 
preached — avowed, indeed, and preached in terms. 
(See, particularly, part ii., chap, ii.) This effect of its 
hardihood was certainly anticipated by its author ; for 
the supposed editor, in his advertisement, describes it, 
somewhat complacently, if not boastingly, as " l'ouvrage 
le plus hardi et leplus extraordinaire que 1'esprithumain 
ait ose produire jusqu'a present." 

The grand object of the book being to show that there 
is no God, the author begins by endeavouring to esta- 

* The treatise of Robinet. De la Nature, which, though far less 
eloquent and dexterous, is superior in real merit, has never attracted 
anything like the same notice. 



NOTES. 



235 



blish the most rigorous materialism, by trying to show 
that there is no such thing as mind — nothing beyond or 
different from the material world. His whole fabric is 
built on this foundation; and it would be difficult to find 
in the history of metaphysical controversies such incon- 
clusive reasoning, and such undisguised assumptions of 
the matter in dispute as this fundamental part of his 
system is composed of. He begins with asserting that 
man has no means of carrying his mind beyond the 
visible world ; that he is necessarily confined within its 
limits; and that there exists nothing, and there can 
exist nothing, beyond the boundary which incloses all 
beings — that is, the material world. Nature, we are 
told, acts according to laws, simple, uniform, invariable, 
which we discover by experience. We are related to 
Universal Nature by our senses, which alone enable us 
to discover her secrets; and the instant we abandon the 
lessons which those senses teach us, we plunge into an 
abyss where we become the prey of imagination. 

Thus the very first chapter — the opening of the work 
— has already made the gratuitous assumption of a being 
whom the author calls Nature, without either defining 
what that is, or how we arrive at a knowledge of its ex- 
istence. He has also assumed another existence, that 
of matter, or the material world ; and then he asserts — 
what is absolutely contrary to every day's experience, 
and to the first rudiments of science — that we know, and 
can know, nothing but what our senses tell us. It is a 
sufficient answer to ask, how we know anything of ma- 
thematical truth ? And in case a cavil should arise upon 



236 



NOTES. 



geometrical science (though it would be but a cavil) we 
shall speak only of analytical ; and then it is certain 
that the whole science of numbers, from the rules of ele- 
mentary arithmetic up to the highest branches of the 
modern calculus, could by possibility have been disco- 
vered by a person who had never in his life been out of 
a dark room — who had never touched any body but his 
own — nay, whose limbs had all his life been so fixed, 
that he had never exercised even upon his own body the 
sense of touch : indeed, we might even go so far as to 
say, who had never heard a sound uttered ; for the primi- 
tive ideas of number might by possibility have suggested 
themselves to his mind, and been made the grounds of 
all further calculations. What becomes now of all our 
knowledge depending on the senses ? But we need not 
go to so extreme a case as the one just put : there would 
be an end of the position we are dealing with, if a 
person so circumstanced could have discovered any one 
analytical or common arithmetical truth. Enough, in- 
deed, is known to every one, how moderately soever im- 
bued with mathematical learning, to satisfy him how 
little the intimations received from the senses have, or 
can have, to do with the whole science of number and 
quantity. That those intimations of the senses are 
themselves not at all of a material nature, we shall pre- 
sently see. 

After many discussions and much eloquence, in the 
course of which various agents are introduced besides 
Nature, as Necessity, Relation, and so forth, without 
definition of their qualities or proof of their existence, 



NOTES. 



237 



— we come to the great demonstration that no soul, no 
mind, nothing separate from the body and from matter, 
exists, or indeed can exist : for this book is not content 
with scepticism ; it rests not even satisfied with disproof : 
it affects to show the impossibility of the doctrines which 
it combats ; and while perpetually complaining of dog- 
mas, it is perhaps the most dogmatical work that was 
ever written. The sixth and seventh chapters, but the 
seventh especially, treat of this fundamental doctrine — 
the corner-stone of the whole building. The argument 
is, in fact, a mere vague and unintelligible combination 
of words, as when the author concludes by saying, — The 
result of the whole is, that tc the soul, far from being 
anything distinguishable from the body, is only the body 
itself regarded relatively to some of its functions, or to 
some of the manners of acting or of being, whereof it is 
capable as long as it enjoys life" — (n'est que ce corps 
lui meme envisage relativement a quelqu'unes de ses fonc- 
tions ou a quelques facons d'etre et d'agir dont il est 
susceptible tant qu'ii jouit de la vie.) — Or when* he 
describes those faculties which are vulgarly called intel- 
lectual, as modes or manners of being and of acting, 
which result from the organization of the body — (les 
facultes que Pon nomme intellectuelles ne sont que des 
modes ou des facons d'etre et d'agir resultant de l'orga- 
nisation de notre corps.) — Part i. chap. viii. 

But there is still more to be remarked throughout the 
Treatise, an inconceivable forgetfulness of the evidence 
on which each party in the controversy most relies, a con- 
stant assumption of the thing in question, and even an 



238 



KOTES. 



involuntary assumption of that very separate and spi- 
ritual existence which it is the author's object to dis- 
prove. 

Like all materialists, but far more grossly and dog- 
matically than almost any other, the author begins by 
assuming that Matter exists, that we can have no 
doubt whatever of this, and that any other existence is 
a thing to be proved. Now, what is this Matter? 
Whence do we derive any knowledge of it ? How do 
we assure ourselves of its existence ? What evidence 
at all have we respecting either its being or its quali- 
ties ? We feel, or taste, or smell something — that is, 
we have certain sensations which make us conclude 
that something exists beyond ourselves. It will not do 
to say beyond our bodies; for our bodies themselves 
give us the same sensations. What we feel is some- 
thing beyond, or out of, or external to, or other than and 
apart from ourselves — that is, from our minds. Our 
sensations give us the intimation of such existences. 
But what are our sensations ? The feelings or thoughts 
of our minds. Then what we do is this : From certain 
ideas in our minds, produced no doubt by, and con- 
nected with our bodily senses, but independent of, and 
separate from them, we draw certain conclusions by 
reasoning, and those conclusions are in favour of the 
existence of something other than our sensations and 
our reasonings, and other than that which experiences 
the sensations and makes the reasonings — passive in 
the one case — active in the other. That something is 
w T hat we call Mind. But plainly, whatever it is, we 



NOTES. 



239 



owe to it the knowledge that Matter exists: for that 
knowledge is gained by means of a sensation or feeling, 
followed by a process of reasoning ; it is gained by the 
mind having first suffered something, and then done 
something, and, therefore, to say there is no such thing 
as Matter would be a much less absurd inference than 
to say there is no such thing as Mind. The very act 
of inferring, as we do by reasoning, that the object 
which affects our senses exists apart from ourselves, is 
wholly incapable of giving us any knowledge of the 
object's existence without, at the same time, giving us 
a knowledge of our own — that is, of the Mind's exist- 
ence. An external implies necessarily an internal; 
that there may be anything beyond or without, there 
must needs be some other thing beyond or without 
which it is said to exist ; that there may be a body 
which we feel abiding separate from us, namely, our 
own body, one part of which gives us sensations through 
another part — there must be a ice, an us — that is, a 
mind. If, as the Systeme de la Nature often contends, 
we have a right to call spirit, or soul, or Mind, a mere 
negation of the qualities of Matter, surely this might 
just as well be retorted by saying, that Matter is only a 
negation of the qualities of Mind. But, in truth, the 
materialists cannot stir one step without the aid of that 
Mind whose existence they deny. 

Then what are those qualities of Matter they are 
always speaking about ? What but the effects, or the 
power of causing those effects produced by Matter upon 
the Mind through the senses ? A remarkable instance, 



240 



NOTES. 



and a very instructive one, of the impossibility of a 
materialist arguing legitimately, strictly, or consistently, 
is to be found in the passage of this book, where the 
argument is as it were summed up against the exist- 
ence of mind : " La matiere seule pent agir sur nos 
sens sans iesquels il nous est impossible que rien se 
fasse conndiire de nous." Here the author, in order to 
deny the possibility of Mind, or any thing else than 
Matter having an existence, uses, in two lines, ex- 
pressions, six times over, all drawn from the assump- 
tion of a something existing separate from and inde- 
pendent of Matter. Our — senses — which — us — • 
known — by us — all these are words absolutely without 
meaning if there is nothing but matter in existence; 
and these are expressions conveying the ideas of which 
this fundamental proposition wholly consists. But 
that the author refers to Bishop Berkeley, as well as 
Mr. Locke, it might have been supposed that he had 
never been made aware of the controversy upon the 
existence of matter. Indeed the manner in which he 
mentions the speculations of Berkeley is quite sufficient 
to show his ignorance of the nature of the question, and 
reminds us forcibly of the remark made by D'Alembert, 
that whoever had not at times doubted the existence of 
matter, might be assured he had not any genius for 
metaphysical inquiries. Would any one believe it pos- 
sible, that an author who could dogmatically deny the 
possibility of Mind existing in any form apart from 
Matter, should be so little competent to discuss ques- 
tions like this, as to speak in these terms of Berkeley ? 



NOTES. 



241 



<c Que disons nous d'un Berkley qui s'efforce de nous 
prouverque tout dans ce monden'est qu'une illusion chi- 
merique; que l'univers entier n'existe que dans nous- 
memes, et dans notre imagination," &c. <c Pour 
justifier des opinions si monstrueuses," &c. 

The truth is, that we believe in the existence of 
Matter, because we cannot help it. The inferences of 
our reason from our sensations impel us to this conclu- 
sion, and the steps are few and short by which we 
reach it. But the steps are fewer and shorter, and of 
the self-same nature, which lead us to believe in the 
existence of Mind; for of that we have the evidence 
within ourselves, and wholly independent of our senses. 
Nor can we ever draw the inference in any one instance 
of the existence of matter without at the same time 
exhibiting a proof of the existence of mind ; for we are, 
by the supposition, reasoning, inferring, drawing a con- 
clusion, forming a belief ; therefore there exists some- 
body, or something, to reason, to infer, to conclude, to 
believe ; that is, we — not any fraction of matter, but a 
reasoning, inferring, believing being — in other words, a 
Mind. In this sense the celebrated argument of Des- 
cartes — cogiio, ergo sum— had a correct and a profound 
meaning. If, then, scepticism can have any place in 
our system, assuredly it relates to the existence of 
Matter far more than of Mind ; yet the Systeme de la 
Nature is entirely founded upon the existence of Matter 
being a self-evident truth, admitting of no proof, and 
standing in need of none. 

We have combated the main body of the argument 

M 



242 



NOTES. 



which runs through the whole book, and passed over 
some of the gross errors, apparently proceeding from 
ignorance of physical science, in which it abounds. Of 
these the most notable, no doubt, is that which Voltaire, 
in his Essai sur le Systeme de la Nature, considers 
(chap, i.) as the foundation of the whole theory — the 
absurd passage respecting the formation of eels. Certain 
it is, that in the Second chapter of Part I., the experi- 
ment of moistening flour, and thereby producing live 
microscopic insects, is referred to as a proof that " in- 
animate matter can pass into life," "which," adds the 
book, "is itself but the union of notions." No one 
indeed can accuse Voltaire of taking an unfair advan- 
tage when he relies on this piece of extraordinary igno- 
rance; but it is not altogether just to represent the 
whole book as resting on this blunder. 

As for the kind of comparisons or analogies by which, 
like all materialists, this writer tries to illustrate his 
hypothesis, and by which many materialists really are 
deceived — the mechanism of a watch, for example, 
consisting of parts each separately incapable of pro- 
ducing any result, but altogether forming a moving 
instrument that measures the efflux of time — nothing, 
surely, can be more puerile than the attempt to draw 
from thence an argument in favour of the confused, 
and, when examined closely, unintelligible position that 
Mind is a modification of Matter, or the result of a 
collocation of material particles. For the watch is 
material, doubtless, both in its whole and in each part 
separately ; the combination never produces any effect 



NOTES. 



243 



that is not strictly of a material kind ; the motions and 
the registration of time resulting from them are all as 
purely mechanical as the form of each part, and each 
part has in it every quality and incident in kind which 
the whole possesses. The difference in the case of 
Mind is, that we have something wholly of a neW and 
peculiar kind, and in no respect resembling or belonging 
to the same class with any of the exertions or operations 
of the material parts, the combination of which is alleged 
by the materialist to have given it birth. 

The first part having laid the foundation by dis- 
proving the existence of Mind, the second part of the 
" Systeme " proceeds to raise upon it the conclusion 
that the Deity's existence is impossible. This part is 
much more declamatory than the former, though often 
displaying great powers of eloquence, and reminding 
us of the more striking parts of Rousseau's early 
writings, especially his paradoxes against knowledge, 
perhaps in a more choice style, and with colouring 
more subdued. But reasoning it contains absolutely 
none, with the exception of the Fourth chapter, where 
Dr. S. Clarke's argument a priori is dissected and re- 
futed — a task, unfortunately, not very difficult to accom- 
plish, though it is here done in an illegitimate manner. 
We cannot, however, fail to observe, that while the 
author proposes to go through the arguments of the 
various philosophers who have maintained the existence 
of a Deity ; and while he does remark on Descartes, 
Malebranche, Newton, and Clarke, (in a chapter which 
forms by far the most argumentative part of his book,) he 

m 2 



244 



NOTES. 



never approaches those who have treated the question 
by the argument a 'posteriori. In one place (chap, vii.) 
he refers to Final Causes, but this passage only relates to 
the subject of man's superiority and the arguments of the 
optimists, and does not at all touch upon the evidences of 
design derived from the structure of the universe — the 
great foundation of Natural Theology. It is impossible 
to suppose the author ignorant of the argument a pos- 
teriori, for he in one place refers to Derham by name. 
The omission of all reference to the most important 
branch of the subject is one of the things that most 
bring the good faith of this writer into question. 

The purpose of this note having been to show how the 
atheistical argument grounded on materialism fails when 
examined in its connexion with the evidences of the 
Mind's independent existence, to pursue further the 
Second Part of the work is unnecessary. But a few 
remarks are added to show how exactly the same as- 
sumption of the things to be proved prevails here which 
we observed in the First Part. 

The first proposition, and supported at great length, is 
that all the ideas which man has formed of a First Cause 
have resulted from the evils of his lot, and that but for 
human suffering a Deity would never have been thought 
of. "Inquiry and speculation," says the author, "is 
itself an evil ; and no creature living easy and happy, 
without pain and without wants, would ever give, himself 
the trouble and annoyance of arguing on a First Cause. 
But fear and evil, especially pain and death — the terrors 
of earthquake, eclipse, tempest — the horrors of death — 



NOTES. 



245 



drove the mind to seek out the source of all these dan- 
gers, and to appease or disarm its supposed wrath \ and 
thus the sky was peopled with gods and spirits." 

Now, that the fears and the ignorance of men have 
been the fruitful source of polytheism, no one doubts ; 
but it is wholly false to assert that genuine and philoso- 
phical religion could have had no other origin. To 
affirm that, but for their sufferings and fears, men never 
would have encountered the pain or the trouble of 
speculating on a First Cause, is quite contrary to the 
most obvious facts. Those speculations, far from being 
painful or troublesome, are gratifying in the highest 
degree. As well might it be said that all the pleasures 
of scientific discover} 7 and study would have been fore- 
gone by all men, but for some physical inconvenience 
that drove them into those paths of investigation. Of all 
writers, the authors of the great improvements in phy- 
sical science are they who have been the least under the 
pressure of want, and have gained the least by their 
labours. But such speculations are productive of the 
greatest gratification, both to the guide who originally 
points oat the way, and to those who more humbly follow 
in his footsteps. So the sublime contemplations of 
Natural Theology have engaged men's attention and 
exercised their faculties, wholly independent of any 
sufferings they were exposed to, or any fears they enter- 
tained ; and far from being a source of pain, this study 
has ever been found to reward its votaries with the purest 
enjoyment. 

That the study and the knowledge of a Deity would 



246 



NOTES. 



have existed without any relation to evil is therefore 
clear. Man's curiosity — his natural desire of tracing 
the origin of what he saw around him — his anxiety to 
know whence he came, and whither he was going, and 
how the frame of the universe was contrived and sus- 
tained — would have led to the study and knowledge of a 
Creator without any such motives as this book supposes. 

It is remarkable, that in the latter, as in the former 
portion of the work, blind assumptions are not only 
always made, but an entire disregard is shown to the 
evidence which often arises out of those very as- 
sumptions, and proves the truths its author is endea- 
vouring to subvert. Thus, in the Second chapter, he 
says : " Whether the human race has always existed on 
this earth, or that it is a recent and transitory production 
of nature. ..." Now, if it be a recent production of 
nature, surely this admits the creative power — the very 
divinity the book is contending against; for what can 
be the meaning of a state of things, in which, up to a 
certain time — i.e. six or seven thousand years ago — the 
human species had no existence, and then this species 
coming into existence, or, as the book says, being pro- 
duced by nature? What but that a superintending 
power, which had not before acted in this way, now for 
the first time began thus to act ? To call this Nature is 
only changing the name — a Deity is the plain and the 
true meaning, and the only thing which can be meant. 

Indeed, nothing can be more absurd and unreflecting 
than the play made throughout the book with mere 
words. Thus, in the same chapter, it is asked — whether 



NOTES. 



247 



a Theologian " can really be sincere in believing himself 
to have made a step by substituting the vague words 
spirit, incorporeal substance, divinity, &c, for those in- 
telligible words" — what ? what words so much less vague 
and more intelligible* than spirit ? — " those intelligible 
words, matter, nature, mobility, necessity ! " Now, we 
may safely ask, if all language furnishes two words more 
vague and less intelligible than two out of these four — 
viz. nature and necessity ? But we have, in truth, already 
shown that Matter, as far as the present controversy is 
concerned, offers no more precise idea to our contempla- 
tion than Mind or spirit, and that its existence and qua- 
lities rest on less conclusive evidence than do those of 
Mind. Possibly the reader of this passage, and espe- 
cially if he casts his eye back upon the former parts of 
the argument, may be inclined to adopt the writer's de- 
scription of Theology, and apply it to the dogmatical 
Atheism of the Systeme de la Nature. 

* There occurs every where in this hook a vague and mysterious 
idea of a force or living power belonging to Matter, and almost a 
deification of this power, utterly unintelligible ; hut in a hater of 
Deity — a derider of all gods — quite marvellous. The passage in 
which this idea is most strikingly announced is the 11th chapter 
of part ii., where he is answering the position that there is no such 
thing as an Atheist in the world — " Si par A thee Ton designe un 
homme qui nieroit l'existence d'une force inhtrente a la nature et 
sans laquelle Ton ne peut concevoir la Nature, et si c'est a cette 
force motive qu'on donne le nom de Dieu, il n'existe point d' Athees 
et le mot sous lequel on les designe, n'annonceroit que des fous." — 
Can any one doubt, that after rejecting all reasonable and con- 
sistent notions of a Deity, this writer had really made unto himself 
other gods, and bowed down before them, and worshipped them ? 
For what is " the force inherent in matter ?" and what is " nature/' 
and the essence of nature, or that thing "without which nature 
cannot be conceived?" 



248 



NOTES. 



Note V.— Page 211. 

Of Mr. Hume's Sceptical Writings, and the Argument 
respecting Providence. 

The two most celebrated and most dangerous treatises 
of this great author, upon religious subjects, are those'm 
which he has attacked the foundations of Natural and of 
Revealed Religion — the Essay on Providence and a 
Future State, and the Essay on Miracles. Others of 
his writings have a similar tendency, and more covertly 
though as surely sap the principles of religion. But the 
two essays to which we have referred are the most im- 
portant writings of this eminent philosopher, because 
they bring his sceptical opinions more directly to bear 
upon the systems of actual belief. 

I. The argument of Tillotson against the doctrine 
of the Real Presence is stated to have suggested that 
against the truth, or rather the possibility of Miracles ; 
but there is this most material difference between the 
two questions — that they who assert the Real Presence 
drive us to admit a proposition contrary to the evidence 
of our senses, upon a subject respecting which the senses 
alone can decide, and to admit it by the force of reason- 
ings ultimately drawn from the senses — reasonings far 
more likely to deceive than they, because applicable to 
a matter not so well fitted for argument as for perception, 
but reasonings at any rate incapable of exceeding the evi- 
dence the senses give. Nothing, therefore, can be more 
conclusive than Tillotson's argument — that against the 



NOTES. 



249 



Real Presence we have of necessity every argument, and 
of the selfsame kind with those which it purports to rest 
upon, and a good deal more besides ; for if we must not 
believe our senses when they tell us that a piece of bread 
is merely bread, what right have we to believe those same 
senses, when they convey to us the words in which the 
arguments of the Fathers are couched, or the quotations 
from Scripture itself, to make us suppose the bread 
is not bread, but flesh ? And as ultimately even the 
testimony of a witness who should tell us that he had 
heard an apostle or the Deity himself affirm the Real 
Presence, must resolve itself into the evidence of that 
witness's senses, what possible ground can we have for 
believing that he heard the divine affirmation, stronger 
than the evidence which our own senses plainly give us 
to the contrary ? 

This is very far from being the case with the argu- 
ment on Miracles. There, the evidence for and the evi- 
dence against do not coincide in kind, but take opposite 
directions. There, we have not to disbelieve indications 
of the same nature with those upon which our belief is 
challenged. The testimony of witnesses is adduced to 
prove a Miracle, or deviation from the ordinary laws of 
nature ; but, says Mr. Hume, it is more likely that the 
witnesses should be deceived or should deceive, than that 
the laws of nature should be broken ; and at all events 
we believe testimony only because it is a law of nature 
that men should tell the truth. This may very possibly 
be true ; doubtless it is, generally speaking, so likely to be 
true, that the belief of a miracle is, and ought to be, most 

m 3 



250 



NOTES. 



difficult to bring about ; but at least, it is not like the 
belief in the Real Presence: it does not at one and the 
same time assume the accuracy of the indications given 
by our senses, and set that accuracy at nought ; — it does 
not at once desire us implicitly to trust, and entirely to 
disregard the evidence of testimony, as the doctrine of 
Transubstantiation calls upon us at once to trust and 
disregard the evidence of our senses. 

There are two answers, however, to which the doctrine 
proposed by Mr. Hume is exposed, and either appears 
sufficient to shake it. 

First — Our belief in the uniformity of the laws of 
nature rests not altogether upon our own experience. 
We believe no man ever was raised from the dead — not 
merely because we ourselves never saw it, for indeed that 
would be a very limited ground of deduction ; and our 
belief was fixed on the subject long before we had any 
considerable experience — fixed chiefly by authority — 
that is, by deference to other men's experience. We 
found our confident belief in this negative position partly, 
perhaps chiefly, upon the testimony of others ; and at all 
events, our belief that in times before our own the same 
position held good, must of necessity be drawn from our 
trusting the relations of other men — that is, it depends 
upon the evidence of testimony. If, then, the existence 
of the law of nature is proved, in great part at least, by 
such evidence, can we wholly reject the like evidence 
when it comes to prove an exception to the rule — a de- 
viation from the law ? The more numerous are the 
cases of the law being kept — the more rare those of its 



NOTES. 



251 



being broken — the more scrupulous certainly ought we 
to be in admitting the proofs of the breach. But that 
testimony is capable of making good the proof there 
seems no doubt. In truth, the degree of excellence and 
of strength to which testimony may rise seems almost 
indefinite. There is hardly any cogency which it is not 
capable by possible supposition of attaining. The end- 
less multiplication of witnesses — the unbounded variety 
of their habits of thinking, their prejudices, their inte- 
rests — afford the means of conceiving the force of their 
testimony augmented ad infinitum, because these cir- 
cumstances afford the means of diminishing indefinitely 
the chances of their being all mistaken, all misled, or all 
combining to deceive us. Let any man try to calculate 
the chances of a thousand persons who come from dif- 
ferent quarters, and never saw r each other before, and 
who all vary in their habits, stations, opinions, interests — 
being mistaken ot combining to deceive us, when they 
give the same account of an event as having happened 
before their eyes — these chances are many hundreds of 
thousands to one. And yet we can conceive them multi- 
plied indefinitely ; for one hundred thousand such wit- 
nesses may all in like manner bear the same testimony ; 
and they may all tell us their story within twenty-four 
hours after the transaction, and in the next parish. 
And yet, according to Mr. Hume's argument, we are 
bound to disbelieve them all, because they speak to a 
thing contrary to our own experience, and to the accounts 
which other witnesses had formerly given us of the laws 
of nature, and which our forefathers had handed down to 



252 



NOTES. 



us as derived from witnesses who lived in the old time 
before them. It is unnecessary to add that no testimony 
of the witnesses whom we are supposing to concur in their 
relation contradicts any testimony of our own senses. If 
it did, the argument would resemble Archbishop Tillot- 
son's upon the real presence, and our disbelief would be 
at once warranted.* 

Secondly — This leads us to the next objection to which 
Mr. Hume's argument is liable, and which we have in 
part anticipated while illustrating the first. He requires 
us to withhold our belief in circumstances which would 
force every man of common understanding to lend his 
assent, and to act upon the supposition of the story told 
being true. For suppose either such numbers of various 
witnesses as we have spoken of ; or, what is perhaps 
stronger, suppose a miracle reported to us, first by a 

* Prophecy is classed by Mr. Hume under the same head with 
Miracle — every prophecy being, he says, a miracle. This is not, 
however, quite correct. A prophecy — that is, the happening of an 
event which was foretold — may be proved even by the evidence of 
the senses of the whole world. Suppose it had one thousand years 
ago been foretold, that, on a certain day this year, one person of 
every family in the world should be seized with a particular distem- 
per, it is evident that every family would be at once certain that the 
event had happened, and that it had been foretold. To future gene- 
rations the fulfilment would no doubt come within the description 
of a miracle in all respects. The truth is, that the event happening 
which was foretold may be compared to the miracle ; and Mr. 
Hume's argument will then be, not that there is any thing mira- 
culous in the event itself, but only in its happening after it had 
been foretold. Bishop Sherlock wrote discourses on this subject, 
which Dr. Middleton answered : the former denying that prophecy 
was more exempt from the scope of the sceptical argument than 
miracles. On the whole, however, it does seem more exempt. 



NOTES. 



253 



number of relators, and then by three or four of the 
very soundest judges and most incorruptibly honest men 
we know — men noted for their difficult belief of won- 
ders, and, above all, steady unbelievers in Miracles, 
without any bias in favour of religion, but rather accus- 
tomed to doubt, if not disbelieve — most people would 
lend an easy belief to any Miracle thus vouched. But let 
us add this circumstance, that a friend on his death-bed 
had been attended by us, and that we had told him a 
fact known only to ourselves — something that we had 
secretly done the very moment before we told it to the 
dying man, and which to no other being we had ever 
revealed — and that the credible witnesses we are sup- 
posing inform us that the deceased appeared to them, 
conversed with them, remained with them a day or two, 
accompanying them, and to avouch the fact of his re- 
appearance on this earth, communicated to them the 
secret of which we had made him the sole depository the 
moment before his death ; — according to Mr. Hume, we 
are bound rather to believe, not only that those credible 
witnesses deceive us, or that those sound and unpreju- 
diced men were themselves deceived, and fancied things 
without real existence, but further, that they all hit by 
chance upon the discovery of a real secret, known only 
to ourselves and the dead man. Mr. Hume's argument 
requires us to believe this as the lesser improbability of 
the two — as less unlikely than the rising of one from 
the dead ; and yet every one must feel convinced, that 
were he placed in the situation we have been figuring, 
he would not only lend his belief to the relation, but, if 



254 



NOTES. 



the relators accompanied it with a special warning from 
the deceased person to avoid a certain contemplated 
act, he would, acting upon the belief of their story, take 
the warning, and avoid doing the forbidden deed. Mr. 
Hume's argument makes no exception. This is its 
scope ; and whether he chooses to push it thus far or 
no, all Miracles are of necessity denied by it, without 
the least regard to the kind or the quantity of the proof 
on which they are rested; and the testimony which 
we have supposed, accompanied by the test or check 
we have supposed, would fall within the grasp of the 
argument just as much and as clearly as any other 
Miracle avouched by more ordinary combinations of 
evidence. 

The use of Mr. Hume's argument is this, and it is 
an important and a valuable one. It teaches us to sift 
closely and rigorously the evidence for miraculous 
events. It bids us remember that the probabilities are 
always, and must always be, incomparably greater 
against than for the truth of these relations, because 
it is always far more likely that the testimony should be 
mistaken or false, than that the general laws of nature 
should be suspended. Further than this the doctrine 
cannot in soundness of reason be carried. It does not 
go the length of proving that those general laws cannot, 
by the force of human testimony, be shown to have 
been, in a particular instance, and with a particular 
purpose, suspended. 

It is unnecessary to add, that the argument here has 
only been conducted to one point, and upon one ground 



NOTES. 



255 



— namely, to refute the doctrine that a Miracle cannot 
be proved by any evidence of testimony. It is for those 
who maintain the truth of any revelation to show in 
what manner the evidence suffices to prove the Miracles 
on which that revelation rests. This treatise is not 
directed to that object; but in commenting upon Mr. 
Hume's celebrated argument, we have dealt with a fun- 
damental objection to all Revelation, and one which, 
until removed, precludes the possibility of any such 
system being established. 

II. The Essay on Miracles being supposed by its 
author sufficient to dispose of Revelation, the Essay 
on Providence and a Future State appears to have been 
aimed as a blow equally fatal to Natural Religion. Its 
merits are, however, of a very superior order. There is 
nothing of the sarcasm so unbecoming on subjects of this 
most serious kind, which disfigures the concluding por- 
tion of the former treatise. The tone is more philoso- 
phic, and the sceptical character is better sustained. 
There cannot, indeed, be said to prevail through it any- 
thing of a dogmatical spirit, and certainly we here meet 
with none of that propensity to assume the thing in 
question, to insist upon propositions as proved which 
have only been enunciated, to supply by sounds the 
place of ideas, which we remark in the " Systems de la 
Nature" On the contrary, the argument, whether 
sound or not, is of a substantial nature ; it is rested on 
very plausible grounds; and we may the rather con- 
clude that it is not very easily answered, because, in 
fact, it has rarely, if ever, been encountered by writers 



256 



NOTES. 



on theological subjects. Nevertheless, it strikes at the 
root of all Natural Religion, and requires a careful con- 
sideration. 

Mr. Hume does not deny that the reasoning from the 
appearances and operations of nature to the existence 
of an intelligent cause is logical and sound ; at least he 
admits this for argument's sake. But he takes this 
nice and subtle distinction. We are here, he observes, 
dealing with an agent, an intelligence, a being, wholly 
unlike all we elsewhere see or hitherto have known : our 
inferences, therefore, must be confined strictly to the 
facts from whence they are drawn. When we see a 
foot-mark imprinted on the sand, we conclude that a 
man has walked there, and that his other foot had like- 
wise left its print, which the waves have effaced. But 
this inference is not drawn from the inspection of the 
foot alone ; it comes from a previous knowledge of the 
human body, of which the foot makes a part. Had we 
never seen that body, or any other that walked on feet, 
the observation of the mark in the sand could have led 
to no other conclusion than that some body or thing had 
been there with a form like the mark. So, when we are 
to reason from the works of nature to their cause, we are 
entitled to conclude that a being exists whose power and 
skill created them such as we behold them, and conse- 
quently that this being is possessed of skill and power 
sufficient to contrive and to execute those works — that is, 
those precise works, and no more. We have no right to 
infer that this being has the skill or the power to contrive 
and create one single blade of grass or grain of sand be- 



NOTES. 



257 



yond what we see. It follows, then, that the argument 
d posteriori only leads to the conclusion that a finite and 
not an infinitely or an indefinitely wise and powerful 
Being exists ; and it further follows that we are left 
without any evidence of his power (much less of his in- 
tention) to perpetuate our existence after death, as well 
as without any proof of the capacity of the soul to receive 
such a continuation of being after its separation from the 
"body. This is the sum of the very ingenious, subtle, 
and original argument of Mr. Hume, affording a mighty 
contrast to the flimsy sophisms, the declamatory asser- 
tions, of the French writers, and giving the Natural 
Theologian, it must be allowed, a good deal to answer. 
We have stated it as strongly as we could, in order to 
meet it fully ; and it appears capable of a satisfactory 
answer. 

The whole argument a posteriori rests upon the 
assumption, that if we perceive arrangements made, by 
means of which certain effects are produced, and if 
seeing such arrangements among the works of men, we 
should at once conclude that they were designed to 
produce those effects, we are entitled to say that the 
arrangements which we see and which we know not to 
be the work of man, are the work of an intelligent cause, 
contriving them for the purpose of producing the effects 
observed. In truth, such must needs be the assumption 
on which the argument rests, because we have no other 
knowledge of what design and contrivance are. They 
necessarily bear reference to our own nature and the 
knowledge we have of our own minds, derived from our 



258 



NOTES. 



own consciousness and experience ; and of this we have 
treated in the text, Sect. III. and IV. of Part I. 

If we found anywhere a mechanism of any kind, a 
watch for instance, as Paley puts the case, we should 
at once conclude that some skilful and intelligent being 
had been there, and had left his works on the spot. 
We should conclude (indeed this is involved in the 
former inference) that he was capable of doing what we 
saw he had done, and that he had intended to produce 
a particular effect by the exercise of his skill ; but we 
should also conclude that he who could do this could 
repeat the operation if he chose, and the probability 
would be that his skill had not been confined to the 
single exertion of it which we had observed. There is 
nothing peculiar in the nature of human workmanship 
or of the human character to make us draw this con- 
clusion. We arrive at it just as we arrive at the in- 
ference of design and contrivance ; we believe in them 
because we are wholly unable to conceive such an 
adaptation without such an intention; and we are 
equally unable to conceive that any being, or any in- 
telligence, or any power, which had sufficed to perform 
the operation we see, should be confined to that single 
exertion. We can conceive no reason whatever why 
the same power should not be capable of repeating the 
operation. There is nothing peculiar — no limit — no 
sufficient reason, of an exclusive nature, why the same 
power should not be again exercised and with the same 
result. All induction proceeds upon similar grounds. 
It is the generalization of particulars ; it is the con- 



NOTES. 



259 



eluding from a certain limited number of instances to 
an indefinite number — to any number unless circum- 
stances arise to restrict the generality — to any number, 
where nothing arises to vary or limit the conclusion. 
We mix an acid and alkali, and form a neutral salt 
having peculiar properties. We pass a sun-beam or 
the light of a candle through a prism, and observe the 
rays separated into lights making certain colours. Why 
do we conclude from hence that all the acid made by 
burning sulphur, in what way soever the sulphur was 
produced or the combustion effected, will be neutralized 
by soda wheresoever produced and howsoever obtained, 
and that their union will always make Glauber's salts ? 
Or, that all light, of all kinds, even that obtained by 
burning newly-discovered bodies, as the metal of potas- 
sium, unseen, unknown before the year 1807, will be found 
resolvable into the seven primary colours ? According 
to Mr. Hume's argument, we have no right to infer that 
any one portion of acid or alkali, save the one we have 
subjected to our experiments, or any light save that of 
the formerly-known combustible bodies, or rather of 
those classes of them on which we had experimented — 
nay of the individuals of those classes which we have 
burnt — will produce the effects we have experienced in 
our laboratory, or in our darkened chamber. In other 
words, according to this argument, all experimental 
knowledge must stand still, generalizing be at an end, 
and philosophers be content never to make a single 
step, or draw one conclusion beyond the mere facts ob- 
served by them : in a word, Inductive Science must be 



260 



NOTES. 



turned from a process of general reasoning upon par- 
ticular facts, into a bare dry record of those particular 
facts themselves. 

If, indeed, it be said that we never can be so certain 
of the things we infer as we are of those we have observed, 
and on which our inference is grounded, we may admit 
this to be true. But no one therefore denies the value 
of the science which is composed of the inferences. So 
we cannot be so well assured of the Deity's power to 
repeat and to vary and to extend his operations, as we 
are of his having created what we actually observe ; and 
yet our assurance may be quite sufficient to merit entire 
confidence. Nor will any student of Natural Theology 
complain if the only result of the argument we are 
combating be to place the higher truths of the science 
but a very little lower in point of proof than the in- 
ferences of design in the works actually examined. 
The selfsame difference is to be found in the inferences 
composing the other branches of inductive science, and 
it in no perceptible degree lessens our confidence in the 
inductive method. 

It has oftentimes been asked, why we believe that 
the same result will happen from the same cause acting 
in the like circumstances — the foundation of all induc- 
tion ; and no answer has ever been given except that we 
cannot help so believing — that the condition of our 
being — the nature of our minds — compels us so to 
believe ; and we take this as an ultimate fact incapable 
of being resolved into any fact more general. Can we 
help believing that a being capable of creating what we 



NOTES. 



261 



see and examine, is also capable of exercising other acts 
of skill and power ? Can we avoid believing that the 
same power which made all the animals and vegetables 
on our globe suffices to people and provide other worlds 
in like manner? Again, can we by any effort bring 
our minds to suppose that this being's whole skill and 
power were exhausted by one effort, and that having 
sufficed to create the universe, it ceases to be effective 
for any other purpose whatever ? The answer is, that 
we cannot — that we can as soon believe in the sun not 
rising to-morrow, or in his light ceasing to be differently 
refrangible. 

Much is said in the course of arguments like the 
present of the word " infinite." Whether or not we are 
able to form any precise idea of that which has no 
bounds in power or in duration may be another ques- 
tion. But when we see such stupendous exertions of 
power, upon a scale so vast as far to pass all our facul- 
ties of comprehension, and with a minuteness at the 
same time so absolute, that as we can on the one hand 
perceive nothing beyond its grasp, so we are on the 
other hand unable to find anything too minute to escape 
its notice, we are irresistibly led to conclude that there is 
nothing above or below such an agent, and that nothing 
which we can conceive is impossible for such an intelli- 
gence. The argument of Mr. Hume supposes or admits 
that the whole universe is its work, and that animal life 
is its creation. We can no more avoid believing that 
the same power which created the universe can sustain 
it — that the same power which created our souls can 



262 NOTES. 

prolong their existence after death — than we can avoid 
believing that the power which sustained the universe 
up to the instant we are speaking, is able to continue it 
in being for a thousand years to come. But indeed 
Mr. Hume's argument would go the length of making 
us disbelieve that the Deity has the power of continuing 
the existence of the creation for a day. We are only 
entitled, according to this argument, to conclude that 
the Deity had the power of working the works we have 
seen and no more. Last spring' and autumn we ob- 
served the powers of nature in vegetation, that is, we 
noted the operations of the Deity in that portion of his 
works, and were entitled, Mr. Hume admits, to infer 
that he had the skill and the power to produce that 
harvest from that seed time, but no more. We had, 
says the argument, no right whatever to infer that the 
Deity's power extended to another revolution of the 
seasons. The argument is this, or it is nothing. Con- 
fining its scope, as Mr. Hume would confine it, to the 
universe as a whole, and excluding all inferences as to 
a future state or other worlds, is wholly gratuitous. 
The argument applies to all that we have seen of the 
already past and the actually executed in this universe, 
and excludes all respecting this same universe which is 
yet to come ; consequently if it be good for anything, it 
is sufficient to prove that, although our experience may 
authorise us to conclude that the Deity has skill and 
power sufficient to maintain the world in its present 
state up to this hour, yet that experience is wholly 
insufficient to prove that he has either skill or power to 



NOTES. 



263 



continue its existence a moment longer. Every one of 
the topics applied by him to a Future State applies to 
this. If we have no right to believe that one exertion 
of skill proves the author of nature adequate to another 
exertion of a kind no more difficult and only a little 
varied, we can have no right to believe that one exertion 
of skill proves him adequate to a repetition of the same 
identical operation. Now no man living carries or can 
carry his disbelief so far as this. Indeed such doubts 
would not only shake all inductive science to pieces, 
but would put a stop to the whole business of life. And 
assuredly we may be well contented to rest the truths 
of Natural Theology on the same foundation upon which 
those of all the other sciences, as well as the practical 
conduct of all human affairs, must for ever repose. 



Note VI.— Page 94. 
Of the Ancient doctrines respecting Mind. 

The opinions of the ancient philosophers upon the 
nature of the Soul were not very consistent with them- 
selves ; and in some respects were difficult to reconcile 
with the doctrine of its immateriality which most of 
them maintained. It may suffice to mention a few of 
those theories. 

Plato and his pupil Aristotle may certainly be said to 
have held the Soul's immateriality ; at least, they main' 



264 



NOTES. 



tained that it was of a nature wholly different from the 
body ; and they appear often to hold that it was unlike 
all matter whatever, and a substance or existence of a 
nature quite peculiar to itself. Their language is nearly 
the same upon this subject. Plato speaks of the ovmoc 
aorou^ccTog xou voyTyg — a bodiless or incorporeal and 
intelligent being ; and of such existences he says, in 
one place, Tec oca 'cv\lo,Tcl xocXXitToc ovtol xgci psyia-Toc Xoycu 
\xovov, ccXXcv Ss ov<$svi coctpuo; SsixvvTcci — " Things incor- 
poreal being the most excellent and the greatest of all, 
are made manifest by reason alone, and no otherwise 
(Politicus.) So again in the Cratylus, he derives cwp 
from cro^ecrQa/, and represents the body as a prison of 
the soul, sixovoc JgCjowrtjpjou sivoci ovv Tyg av ' ro £cu $ 

7)v Tex o<psiXofj,svcc to crcupcc, following herein the doctrine 
said to have been delivered by Orpheus. Aristotle, too, 
speaks of a being separable and separated from things 
perceivable by the senses — ovticc ^cogta-tr) xoci xsy^ca^ia-- 
IJ.EVY) tujv ociaS^Tcay. Nevertheless, these philosophers 
fluently speak of the soul as being always, and as it 
were necessarily, connected with matter of some kind 
or other — ocsi ^u%r y sit 'it 'stay ^syy] cruo^ocTi, tot's [jcsv ocXXuj, 
tots Ss ocXXoj. The soul is always annexed to a body, 
sometimes to one and sometimes to another. — De Legg. x. 
Thus Aristotle, {De Gener. Anim. ii. 4.) y yccg ^vx'1 
ovtricc cruifj.ccTog Tivog ecti — the soul is the substance of 
some kind of body. And in the treatise DeAnima, ii. 2, 
he says — xoli 8icc tovto xocXuog vtfoXappavovtnv olg Soxsi 
priTs ocvsu (Tuo^oLTog sivoci pjrs crcv^cc ts 4^%^, coopa, psv 
yoco ovx srTij caj^cxTog fc Ti — " Those therefore rightly 



NOTES. 



265 



Jiold who think thai the soul cannot exist without the 
body, and yet that it is not body; it is not the body, 
but somewhat of the body." 

This corporeal connexion is stated by Plutarch, in 
the Qucsst. Platon., still more plainly to have been the 
Platonic doctrine — 4 ,u X y } v ^f^pyrssay fov voo^glTo;, 
aificcv t's ryj$ sxsivov ysvscrscus kou oco^YjV' ovx a yzvscrQou 
t/rjp^y avzv crwaaro; ov$s vow avev tyu%v)$, ccXXoc ^vyr^v 
fj.sv ev 0-ivy.ocrt, vow <$s zv ^vyni. " The soul is older 
than the body, and the cause and origin of its existence : 
not that the soul exists without the body, or the under- 
standing without the soul ; but that the soul is in the 
body, and the understanding in the soul" 

According to these representations and quotations 
taken together, Plato held the soul to be an immaterial 
substance, separable from any given body, but incapable 
of existing without some body or other, and the mind or 
understanding to be a part of the soul. The residue 
of the soul was, as we shall afterwards see, its sensitive 
or mortal portion. 

The idea of motion seems to have been intimately con- 
nected in their views with mind or spirit, and in so far 
their doctrines approach those, if we can call them doc- 
trines, of the modern atheists (See Note IV.) — ro kocvro 
kiveiv (says Plato), <pr t $ Koyov eyjiv ■rtjv ayrtjy ovcriccv 
yvrfsg •tovvoi^OL 6 8s rfaytss tyv%y)v tfpocxyopevoy,£v ; <pr r 
piyz — You say that the substance (or being) to which 
we all give the name of soul, has for its definition iC that 
which moves itself" ? I certainly do say so. — DeLegg. x. 

But the same philosophers ateo held the soul to be an 

N 



266 



NOTES. 



emanation from the Deity, and that each individual soul 
was a portion of the Divine Essence, or Spirit : conse- 
quently, they could not mean to assert that the divine 
essence was inseparable from matter of some kind, but 
only those portions of that essence which they repre- 
sented to be severed, and as it were torn off from the 
divine mind — <rvva,(p£i$ fov Qscv, oil's avfov ^opioc ov<ria, xoci 
aTfocrfcca-^ccTci. — (Epict.) 

Plutarch, in the work already cited, says — tJ $s tj/up^ 
ovk sgyov strri [lovov aXKcc xou fLBpog' ov<? vit ctvTov ccXK 
£7r' avrov, xxi s% ccvrov, yeyoysv — " The soul is not only his 
work, but a part of himself ; it was not created by him, 
but from him and out of him." 



Note VII.— Page 94. 

Of the ancient Doctrines respecting the Deity and 
Matter. 

The notions of the Supreme Being entertained by the an- 
cient philosophers were more simple and consistent than 
their theory of the soul ; and but for the belief, which 
they never shook off, in the eternity of matter, would 
very nearly have coincided with our own. They give 
him the very same names, and clothe him apparently in 
the like "attributes. He is not only afia,va.?o? i cupQxfrfos, 
a,vu)\eQpo$ — immortal, incorruptible, indestructible — but 
aryivvfios, ocvr'oyeyyjf, avropvys, ocv^vn'oa'T'ccto; — uncreated, 



NOTES. 



267 



self-made, self -originating, self -existing. Zcaov ircca-av 
zyov [j,ocxa,piOTr}?tz per cctpQccpaas, says Epicurus — "A 
Being having all happiness, with an incorruptible 
nature" Again, he is Ttavroxpccruop, irocyxpaTys — omni- 
potent, all-powerful ; Svvoct'oci yap ccifavta, says Homer 
(Odyss.%) — " He has power over all things." The 
creative power is also in words at least ascribed to him — 
■Koa-^OTtoiyiTrrf, hjijAOvpyog — the maker of the world, the 
great artificer. Aristotle, too, in a very remarkable 
passage of the Metaphysics, says that God seems to be 
the cause of all things, and, as it were, a beginning, or 
principle — ©eo$ Soxei ro ccitiov tfaxriv sivoci xou apyn) ti.g : 
and, indeed, by implication, this is ascribed in the terms 
uncreated, self-created, and self-existing ; for in sound- 
ness of reason the being who had no creator, and much 
more the being who created himself (if we can conceive 
such an idea), must have created all things else. Never- 
theless, such was certainly not so plain an inference of 
reasoning with the ancients ; for whether it be that by 
avrotpvT^ and ocvToysvyg, they only meant to convey the 
idea of a,y\vr(to$ — of a being uncreated and existing from 
all eternity — or that they took some nice distinction, to 
us incomprehensible, between self- creation and the 
creation of other beings or things — certain it is, that the 
same philosophers who so described the Deity clung to 
the notion of matter being also eternal, and co-existent 
with the supreme power, and that by creator and arti- 
ficer they rather seem to have meant the arranger of 
atoms — the power giving form to chaotic matter, than 
the power calling things into existence. They appear to 

n 2 



268 



NOTES. 



have been all pressed by the difficulty (and who shall 
deny it ?) of conceiving the act of creation — the act of 
calling existences out of nothing. Accordingly, the 
maxim which generally prevailed among most of the 
Greek sects, and which led to very serious and even 
practical consequences in their systems, was ovSsy 
ex. tov [xyi ovtog (or sk ov$svo$) yivecQai — that nothing is 
made of what has no existence, or of nothing. Aris- 
totle represents this as the common opinion of all na- 
tural philosophers before him — xoiyyjv $o%y } v *wv tpvcriyccvy. 
He says, in another passage (De Casio, hi. 1.) — 01 [xev 
avtcuv (rfpo'fspov (piXoccxpYjG-ayfsf) avsiXov 0X00$ ysvecriv xai 
<pQepW ovSsv yap ovrs yiyvscrQai <pa<riv ours (phipEcrQaiTcuv 
ovTcjuy — " Some of those (older philosophers) took away 
(or abolished) all generation and destruction, for they 
hold that none of the things ivhich exist are either created 
or destroyed" Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that 
the Platonic doctrine was of the same kind, and that 
Aristotle, in truth, ascribed only a qualified creative 
power to the Deity. Plutarch's statement of the Pla- 
tonic doctrine is precise to this point — fisXTioy ouv 
Ukai'ujvi 'rf£iQo[j,svov$ toy /xsy xopfLGv vto Qsov ysyovsvou 
Xeysiv xai afoiv o \hty yap xaXXicn'05 ?cvv yeyovoTuov, ofts 
■ccpKTT'o; t'ujv ariiwv' fyv §s overlay xai vXr\v s'£ y)$ ysyovsy, 
ov ysvopt,£VYjV, aXXa vHov.si^eyr t y asi rev Sr^iov^ycy, si$ 8ia- 
$E<riy y.ai rafyy awrys xai ngog avfov £%ofj.oiou<riv } ccg Svvarov 
YjV Ttagacryjiv ov yap sx. rov ovto$ yevEtris, aXX' by. tov 
fj^yj KaXou$, prfi Ixayuog £ %oyro;, cv$. omiag, xai i^anov, xai 
avSpiavro; — " Better then be convinced by Plato, and 
say and sing that the world was made by God ; for the 



NOTES. 



269 



world is the most excellent of all created things, and he 
the best of all causes. But the substance or matter 
(literally timber) of which he made it, was not created, 
but always lay ready for the artificer, to be arranged 
and ordered by him; for the creation was not out of 
nothing, but out of what had been without form and 
unfit, as a house, or a garment, or a statue are made. ,i 
And thus it seems that when Maker or Creator is used 
by the Academics, we are rather to regard them as 
meaning Maker in the sense in which an artificer is said 
to make or fabricate the object of his art. Eifoi^<rey 
(says Aristotle) vov tovh roov xoor^ov e% a.ita,<ra..$ fr t s 
v\a.s — He made the world of all kinds of matter. — De 
An. Mund. Indeed, I can in no other way understand 
that very obscure, and but for some such gloss, con- 
tradictory passage of Aristotle, in the first book of the 
Physics, where he is giving his own doctrine in opposi- 
tion to the tenets of the elder philosophers on this point 
i — Hae/£ $s xoci avtoi (pa,y,Ev yiyve<rQou y,sv ovfov aitXcvg etc 
?ov i^Tj ovrog, wy,ujg ^Evroi yiyvscrSai ax y,y) ovrog oWs 
xa.ro. cv^E^r t xog' ex yccg ry; gte^gew; 6 etti xah" avto 
l^rj ov, oux Evvita^ovrog yiyvsrai Ti. Qccv[xa,g£T J ai ds tovro 
xtzi ativvotfov ouTco Soxei yiyvE&Qoci fi ex rov [at) ovTog — 
" We ourselves however say that nothing is absolutely 
(ox merely) 'produced from what has no existence, yet 
that something is produced from that which has no exist- 
ence as far as regards accidents ( or accessory qualities); 
for something is produced from privation, which has no 
existence in itself, and not from anything inherent. 
But this is wonderful, and seems impossible, thai some- 



270 



NOTES. 



thing should be produced out of that which has no 
existence" — (Whys. i. 8.) Indeed he had said in 
the same treatise, just before, that all confessed it im- 
possible and inconceivable that any being could either 
be created out of nothing, or be utterly destroyed — 
£x rov [j^yj ovros yivso-Qou tors ov s%oWv<r§oLi avyvwrov xou 
cippywrov. {Ib. i. 5.) 

Upon the uncreated nature of things — for the doc- 
trine extended to mind as well as to matter — the ancient 
philosophers founded another tenet of great importance. 
Matter and soul were reckoned not only uncreated, but 
indestructible; their existence was eternal in every 
sense of the word, without end as without beginning : 
ULYjSsv rov y,Yj ovtog yivecrQcti, [xrfie ei$ ro pwj ov pQsipso-Oai 
— " Nothing can be produced out of that which has no 
existence, nor can any thing be reduced to nonentity" 
Such is Diogenes Laertius's account of Democritus's 
doctrine, or the Atomic principle, 

"Principium hinc cujus nobis exordia sumet, 
Nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus unquam" — 

<c Hue accedit uti quidque in sua corpora rursum 
Dissolvat natura, neque ad nihilum intereunt res" — 

*' Haud igitur redit ad nihilum res ulla, sed omnes 
Discidio redeunt in corpora material'' — 

are the expressions of Lucretius, in giving an account of 
the Epicurean Philosophy (i. 151, 217, 249), or, as 
Persius more shortly expresses it, 

rt De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti." — Sal. 'in. 84. 

And it must be admitted that they reasoned with great 
consistency in this respect ; for if the difficulty of com- 



NOTES. 



271 



prehending the act of creation out of nothing was a 
sufficient ground for holding all things to be eternal 
a parte ante — the equal difficulty of comprehending the 
act of annihilation was as good a ground for believing in 
their eternity a parte post — there being manifestly just 
as much difficulty, and of the same kind, in compre- 
hending how a being can cease to exist, as how it can 
come into existence. 

From this doctrine mainly it is that the Greek philo- 
sophers derive the immortality of the soul, as far as the 
metaphysical and more subtle arguments for their belief 
go ; and accordingly its pre-existence is a part of their 
faith as much as its future life, the eternity ab ante being 
as much considered as the eternity post. Thus Plato 
says that " our soul was somewhere before it existed in 
the human form, as also it seems to be immortal after- 
ivards" — yy itov r^uov n) tyvyj, tfgiv sv twos I'm avfywitwui 
zifci ysvscrSou, cuoYs xai Tauty cc^ccvolt'ov ti eoiksv y 
zivcii. — (Phced.) Nevertheless, it must be admitted that 
their doctrine of future existence is most unsatisfactory 
as far as it is thus derived, that is, their psychological 
argument : and for two reasons— -first, because it is cou- 
pled with the tenet of pre-existence, and having no kind 
of evidence of that from reasoning, we not only are 
prone to reject it, but are driven to suppose that our 
future existence will in like manner be severed by want 
of recollection from all consideration of personal identity ; 
secondly, because, according to the doctrine of the soul 
being an emanation from the Deity, its future state im- 
plies a return to the divine essence, and a confusion with 
or absorption in that supreme intelligence, and conse- 



272 



NOTES. 



qnently an extinction of individual existence : a doc- 
trine which was accordingly held by some of the meta- 
physical philosophers who maintained a Future State. 

In one important particular there was an entire dif- 
ference of opinion among the ancient philosophers — in 
truth, so important a difference, that those were held 
not to be theists, but atheists, who maintained one side 
of the argument — I mean as to Providence. The 
Atomists and Epicureans held that there were Gods, and 
upon the subject of creative power they did not mate- 
rially differ from those generally called theists ; but they 
denied that these Gods ever interfered in the affairs of the 
universe. The language of Plato and the other theists 
upon this subject is very strong. They regard such a 
doctrine as one of the three kinds of blasphemy or sacri- 
lege ; and in the Republic of that philosopher, all the 
three crimes are made equally punishable with death. 
The first species is denying the existence of a Deity, or 
of Gods — ro 8e Ssvrsgov, ovt&s (Qzov;) ov (ppovrt^siv <xv- 
Qpovtfov. " The second, admitting their existence, but 
denying that they care for man.'''' The third kind of 
blasphemy was that of men attempting to propitiate the 
Gods towards criminal conduct, as (pQovoi and ac^^ara, 
slaughters and outrages upon justice, " by prayers, 
ii hanks giving s, and sacrifices — thus making those pure 
beings the accomplices of their crimes, by sharing with 
them a small portion of the spoil, as the ivolves do with 
the dogs." — De Legg. x.* 

* Who can read these, and such passages as these, without 
wishing that some who call themselves Christians, some Christian 
Principalities and Powers, had taken a lesson from the heathen 



NOTES. 



273 



Note VIII.— Page 131. 

Of the ancient Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, 

That the ancient philosophers for the most part be- 
lieved in the Future Existence of the Soul after death is 
undeniable. It is equally certain that their opinions 
upon this important subject varied exceedingly, and 
that the kind of immortality admitted by one class can 
hardly be allowed to deserve the name. Thus they who 
considered it as a portion of the Divine essence severed 
for a time, in order to be united with a perishable body, 
believed in a future existence without memory or con- 
sciousness of personal identity, and merely as a re-uniting 
of it with the Divine mind. Such, however, was not the 
belief of the more pure and enlightened theists, and to 
their opinion, as approaching nearest our own, it is pro- 
posed to confine the present notice. 

In one respect, even the most philosophical of those 
theories differed widely from the Christian faith, and 
indeed departed almost as widely from the intimations of 
sound reason. They all believed in the soul's pre-ex- 

sage, and (if their nature forbade them to abstain from massacres 
and injustice) at least bad not committed tbe scandalous impiety, 
as he calls it, of singing in places of Christian worship, and for 
the accomplishment of their enormous crimes, Te Deums, which 
in Plato's Republic would have been punished as blasphemy? 
Who, indeed, can refrain from lamenting another pernicious kind 
of saciilege (an anthropomorphism) yet more frequent — that of 
making Christian temples resound with prayers for victory over 
our enemies, and thanksgiving for their defeat ? Assuredly such 
a ritual as this is not taken from the New Testament. 

N 3 



274 



NOTES. 



istence. This is expressly given as proved by facts, 
and as one argument for immortality or future existence, 
by Plato in the most elaborate treatise which remains 
upon the subject, the Phcedo. He considers that all 
learning is only recollection, fyv fLOcQyo-iv ccvocfjLVYjftv sivat, 
and seems to think it inconceivable that any idea could 
ever come into the mind, of which the rudiments had 
not formerly been implanted there. In the Timceus 
and other writings the same doctrine is farther ex- 
pounded. Hv rfov rjy.ujy, 7) ^yp^Tj itgtv zv fw 8e fa> 
avQgcuitivuj etSsi yEverQcu, wffe koli favfr) aQavafov ft 
soiksv rj 4 ,V X V ) EivGCl - " Our soul existed somewhere 
before it was produced in the human form (or body), 
so it seems to be immortal also." The arguments 
indeed, generally speaking, on which both Plato and 
other philosophers ground their positions, derive their 
chief interest from the importance of the subject, 
and from the exquisite language in which they are 
clothed. As reasonings they are of little force or value. 
Thus it is elaborately shown, or rather asserted in the 
Phcedo, that contraries always come from contraries, 
as life from death, and death from life, in the works of 
Nature. Another argument is that the nature or essence 
of the soul is immortality, and hence it is easily inferred 
that it exists after death, a kind of reasoning hardly 
deserving the name — 'Oitorz fov aSccvccfov xou alioc- 
(pQocoy serf iv, aXKofi 4' v X r i 81 aQ&vccfos fvy^ocvst ovece, 
xat ava>A£(3(po£ av sty) — "Since that which is immortal is 
also indestructible, what else can we conclude but 
that the soul being (or happening to be) immortal, must 



NOTES. 



275 



also be imperishable" (Phced.) A more cogent topic is 
that of its simplicity, from whence the inference is drawn 
that it must be indestructible, because what we mean by 
the destruction of matter is its resolution into the elements 
that compose it. In one passage, Plato comes very near 
the argument relied on in the text respecting the changes 
which the body undergoes ; but it appears from the rest 
of the passage that he had another topic or illustration in 
view — ocXXcc yctg ocv (pouyv Ittacrrtjv rwv ^ivyvjy itoXXoc cuj- 
fj.ccfa, KafaTpifieiv, oiXXasg rs kolv itoXXcc sry fiicu. El yap 
pz<Ti ro trw^a koci atfoXXvoiro sTi Z,ujv7og Tov avftpuoitov ccXX' 
y 4' v X r i asl ro x &Tarpi(3o[j,Evov avvqaivoi avaynouov ^svr 
av sir h OTtors ctifoXXvoiTo 7j •^vyji, toy ?e Xsvfaiov vpacfux,' 
rwyjiv avrYjV syjjvcav, $s tovrov povov itpoi'spav aitoX- 
Xvcrhcti — " But I should rather say that each of our 
souls wears out many bodies, though these should live 
many years ; for if the body runs out and is destroyed, 
the man still living, but the soul always repairs that 
which is ivorn out, it would follow of necessity that the 
soul when it perished would happen to have its last 
covering, and to perish only just before that covering." 
— Phced. A singular instance of the incapacity of the 
ancients to observe facts, or at least the habitual care- 
lessness with which they admitted relations of them, is 
afforded in another of these arguments. Socrates is made 
to refer, in the Phcedo, to the appearance of ghosts near 
places of burial as a well-known and admitted fact, and 
as proving that a portion of the soul for a while survived 
the body, but partook of its nature and likeness, and 
was not altogether immortal. This distinction between 



276 



NOTES. 



the mortal or sensitive and the immortal or intellectual 
part of the soul pervades the Platonic theism. We 
have observed already in the statement of Plutarch, that 
the Platonists held the vov; or intellect to be contained 
in the "\>vyji or soul, and the same doctrine occurs in 
other passages. Aristotle regards the soul in like man- 
ner as composed of two parts — the active, or vov$, and 
the passive : the former he represents as alone immortal 
and eternal ; the latter as destructible, rovro p^ovov abcc- 
varov xat a'tfioy, o £e iroL^rixyj^ <pQa.pro$. — Nic. Eth. 

It must, however, be admitted, that the belief of the 
ancients was more firm and more sound than their rea- 
sonings were cogent. The whole tenor of the doctrine 
in the Phcedo refers to a renewal or continuation of the 
soul as a separate and individual existence, after the 
dissolution of the body, and with a complete conscious- 
ness of personal identity — in short, to a continuance of 
the same rational being's existence after death. The 
liberation from the body is treated as the beginning of 
a new and more perfect life — rots yap avT'yj xafr avfyv yj 
4^%^ scrtai %oupi$ ?ov (ruoiL&t'Tc;' itpo-tzpov o ou (reXsu- 
frpatri). Xenophon thus makes Cyrus deliver himself 
to his children on his death-bed — Ovroi eyovys, wffaiSsf, 
ovSs ?ovro iruoitOT's Eifsitrljav cv$ y) *\>v% r h £Cj v$ f^ev av ev 
Qvytou cw^art vj, ty)v, o?av os rovtov aiiaWayr^ 7'eQvYjXsv — 
ovfis ys htoog atppouv BtrTai y] 4 JV X r n acppovog 
cuop.ai'os <$i%<x ysvr^ai, ov$e rovro KaitBicr^ai' aAA' otccv 
axpccTog xai xa8apo$ o vov; expiry , rote xai (ppovipavTafov 
twos avroy ewai.* Cicero has translated the whole pas- 
* Cyrop. ii. 



NOTES. 



277 



sage upon this subject beautifully, though somewhat 
paraphrastically ; but this portion he has given more 
literally — " Mihi quidem nunquam persuaderi potuit, 
animos dum in corporibus essent mortalibus, vivere ; 
quum exissent ex iis, emori : nec vero turn animum esse 
insipientem, quum ex insipienti corpore evasisset; sed 
quum omni admixtione corporis libera tus pur us et inte- 
ger esse coepisset, eum esse sapientem."* 

None, of the ancients, indeed, has expressed himself 
more clearly or more beautifully upon the subject than 
this great philosopher and rhetorician. His reasoning, 
too, respecting it greatly exceeds in soundness and 
in sagacity that of the Grecian sages. Witness the 
admirable argument in the Tusculan Questions. They 
who deny the doctrine, says he, can only allege as the 
ground of their disbelief the difficulty of comprehending 
the state of the soul severed from the body, as if they 
could comprehend its state in the body. " Quasi vero 
intelligant, qualis sit in ipso corpore, quse conformatio, 
quos magnitudo, qui locus." — " Haec reputent isti (he 
adds) qui negant animum sine corpore se intelligere 
posse ; videbunt quern in ipso corpore intelligant. Mihi 
quidem naturam animi intuenti, multo difhcilior occurrit 
cogitatio, multoque obscurior, qualis animus in corpore 
sit, tanquam alienee domi, quam qualis, cum exierit, et 
in liberum ccelum quasi domum suum venerit."f That 
he derived the most refined gratification from such con- 

* De Senect. 80. — Here the words "omni admixtione, " ? &c. 
are added, 

f Tusc. Quaes!, i. 22. 



278 



NOTES. 



temptations, many passages of his writings attest. None 
more than those towards the close of the Cato Major, 
which must often have cheered the honest labourers for 
their country and their kind in the midst of an un- 
grateful and unworthy generation. <c An censes (ut de 
me ipso aliquid more senum glorier) me tantos labores 
diurnos nocturnosque, domi militieeque suscepturum 
fuisse, si iisdem finibus gloriam meam, quibus vitam 
essem terminaturus ? Nonne melius multo fuisset 
otiosam eetatem et quietam sine ullo labore aut con- 
tentione traducere ?" " Think you — to speak somewhat 
of myself after the manner of old men — think you 
that I should ever have undergone such toils, by day 
and by night, at home and abroad, had I believed that 
the term of my life was to be the period of my renown ? 
How much better would it have been to while away a 
listless being and a tranquil, void of all strife, and free 
from any labour ?"* And again, that famous passage : 
" O praeclarum diem quum ad illud divinum animorum 
concilium caetumque proficiscar ; quumque ex hac turba 
et colluvione discedam 1" " Delightful hour ! when I 
shall journey towards that divine assemblage of spirits, 
and depart from this crowd of polluted things !" f 

The Platonic ideas of a future state, as well as those 
adopted by the Roman sage, distinctly referred to an ac- 
count rendered, and rewards or punishments awarded 
for the things done in the body — %pr} itocvTa Ttoisiv, says 
Plato, wo"fe ap£tYj§ kou <p()ovv)crsco$ sv rcy (3w ihsi'ixo'y^iv' 
kocKov yap T'aSkov xoa t] s\tfi$ i^eyaXy] — " We ought to act 
* De Senect. 82. f Ibid. 85. 



NOTES. 



279 



in all things so as to pursue virtue and wisdom in this 
life, for the labour is excellent and, the hope great." — 
(De Legg. x.J Tov $s ovroc rj^vov kx.a,<r?ov ovrov; aQocva- 
rov sivou, "^vyn-jV sKovo^aXfi^svov, itccpci Qsoig aXKoig cum- 
svcci, Swcovtcc Xoyov, xaQarfsp 6 vo^og 6 itcufpoog Xsysi, rev 
psv ayaQco SccppccXsov, Tov h kcckcv pecXa, (pofispov — " In 
truth each of us — that is to say, each soul — is immortal, 
and departs to other Gods (or Gods in another world) 
to render an account as the laws of the state declare. 
This to the good is matter of confidence, but to the 
wicked of terror" — {De Legg. xii.) So in the be- 
ginning of the Epinomis, he says that a glorious pros- 
pect (xaXv) sKitis") is held out to us of attaining, when 
we die, the happiness not to be enjoyed on earth, and to 
gain which after death, we had exerted all our efforts. 
In the Phcedo, where he is giving a somewhat fanciful 
picture of the next world, he tells us that souls which 
have committed lesser crimes come ei$ ryv Xipvyv Km 
sksi oiKOvtri rs koci xaQaipo^zvoi rujv h afayt^^arujv oi^ovrsg 
fauces antoKvovrai si tig fi ySiKyas — " they remain in that 
space, and being cleansed ( or purged) of their offences, 
are released; " (from whence the idea and the name of 
purgatory has been taken). But such as have been 
incurably wicked, murderers and others, are driven, he 
says, into Tartarus, oQev outvote zKpaivovcriv, "whence 
they never more escaped * It is remarkable, that in the 
same work, Plato, if some words have not been interpo- 
lated in the text, looks forward to some direct divine com- 
munications of light upon this subject ; but recommends 
* Phsed. 



280 



NOTES. 



abiding by the light of reason till that shall be granted. 
Let us, he says, choose the best human reason, and, sitting 
on it like a raft, pass through the dangers of life, unless 
(or until) si jMjt'is Swaifo a<r(pa\£<rrepov xai otKivfovofepov 
srfi (3s(3aior£oov o^r^ocrog r t Xoyov Qeiov ?ivq; Siarfoosv- 
Qyvai — " unless some one can pass us over more easily 
and safely upon some stronger vehicle or divine 
ivord."* 

The passage in the Somnium Scipionis, where celes- 
tial enjoyments are held out as the rewards of public 
virtue, is well known. The precision indeed of the lan- 
guage touching a future state, which marks this treatise, 
is singular, approaching to that of the New Testament — 
" beati sevo sempiterno fruuntur" — " ea vita via est in 
coelum et in hunc coetum eorum qui jam vixerunt et 
corpore laxati ilium incolunt locum" — " immo vero ii 
vivunt, qui ex corporum vinculis, tanquam e carcere, 
evolaverunt; vestra vero, quae dicitur vita, mors est" — 
" sic habeto, non esse te mortalem, sed corpus hoc ; nec 
enim tu is es, quem forma ista declarat, sed mens cuj us- 
que, is est quisque" — " animus in domum suam pervo- 
labit, idque ocius faciet, si jam turn, quum erit inclusus 
in corpore, eminebit foras, et ea quae extra erunt con- 
tempi ans, quam maxime se a corpore abstrahet." These 
things have given rise to doubts of the authenticity of 
the treatise — doubts easily removed by looking to the 
many absurdities respecting the celestial bodies and 
the other accompaniments of heaven with which the 
work abounds; to the Platonic doctrine respecting 
* Phaed. 



NOTES. 



281 



motion as the essence of mind, which it adopts ; and also 
to the doctrine distinctly stated of the pre-existent state. 



Note IX.— Page 131. 

Of Bishop Warburton's Theory concerning the ancient 
Doctrine of a Future State. 

To any one who had read the extracts in the last Note, 
but still more to one who was familiar with the ancient 
writers from whose works they are taken, it might 
appear quite impossible that a question should ever be 
raised upon the general belief of antiquity in a Future 
State, and the belief of some of the most eminent of the 
philosophers, at least, in a state of rewards and punish- 
ments. Nevertheless as there is nothing so plain to 
which the influence of a preconceived opinion and the 
desire of furthering a favourite hypothesis will not blind 
men, and as their blindness in such cases bears even 
a proportion to their learning and ingenuity, it has thus 
fared with the point in question, and Bishop Warburton 
has denied that any of the ancients except Socrates really 
believed in a future state of the soul individually, and 
subject to reward or punishment. He took up this 
argument because it seemed to strengthen his extraor- 
dinary reasoning upon the Legation of Moses. It is 
therefore necessary first to state how his doctrine bears 
upon that reasoning. 



282 NOTES. 

His reasoning is this. The inculcating of a future state 
of retribution is necessary to the well being of society. 
All men, and especially all the wisest nations of anti- 
quity, have agreed in holding such a doctrine necessary 
to be inculcated. But there is nothing of the kind to 
be found in the Mosaic dispensation. And here he 
pauses to observe that these propositions seem too clear 
to require any proof. Nevertheless his whole work is 
consumed in proving them ; and the conclusion from the 
whole, that therefore the Mosaic law is of Divine ori- 
ginal, is left for a further work, which never appeared ; 
and yet this is the very position which all, or almost 
all who may read the book, and even yield their assent 
to it, are the most inclined to reject. Indeed it may 
well be doubted if this work, learned and acute as it is, 
and showing the author to be both well read and well 
fitted for controversy, ever satisfied any one except 
perhaps Bishop Hurd, or ever can demonstrate any 
thing so well, as it proves the proposterous and perverted 
ingenuity of an able and industrious man. 

That such was very far from being the author's 
opinion we have ample proof. He terms his work " A 
Demonstration." He describes his reasoning "as very 
little short of mathematical certainty," and " to which 
nothing but a mere physical possibility of the contrary 
can be opposed;" and he declares his only difficulty to 
be in " telling whether the pleasure of the discovery or 
the wonder that it is now to make be the greater." 
Accordingly in the correspondence between him and his 
friend Bishop Hurd, the complete success of the " De- 



NOTES. 



283 



monstration" is always assumed, and the glory of it is 
made the topic of endless and even mutual gratulation, 
not without pity and even vituperation of all who can 
remain dissatisfied, and who are habitually and compla- 
cently classed by name with the subjects of Pope's well- 
known satire. 

The two things which the author always overlooked 
were the possibility of a human lawgiver making an 
imperfect system, and of sceptics holding the want of 
the sanction in question to be no argument for the 
divine origin of the Mosaic law, but rather a proof of its 
flowing from a human and fallible source. As these 
" mere possibilities' 1 are wholly independent of the ad- 
mission that every word in the book is correct, and all 
the positions are demonstrated, and as nothing whatever 
is said to exclude such suppositions, it is manifest that a 
more useless and absurd argument never was maintained 
upon any grave and important subject. The merit of 
the book lies in its learning and its collateral argument ; 
indeed nearly the whole is collateral, and unconnected 
with the purpose of the reasoning. But much even of 
that collateral matter is fanciful and unsound. The fancy 
that the descent of iEneas to hell in the sixth book of 
the yEneid is a veiled account of the Elensinian Mysteries, 
has probably made as few proselytes as the main body 
of the " Demonstration and if any one has lent his ear 
to the theory that the ancients had no belief in a future 
state of retribution, it can only be from being led away 
by confident assertion from the examination of the facts. 

This position of Bishop Warburton is manifestly 



284 



NOTES. 



wholly unnecessary to the proof of his general theory. 
But he thought it would show more strongly the opinion 
entertained of the uses to be derived from inculcating 
the doctrine of a Future State, if he could prove that they 
who held it in public and with political views, did not 
themselves believe it. 

The way in which he tries to prove this is by ob- 
serving that there prevailed among the old philosophers 
as well as lawgivers a principle of propagating what 
they knew to be false opinions for the public benefit, 
and of thus holding one kind of doctrine in secret, the 
esoteric, and another, the exoteric, in public. Of this 
fact there is no doubt, but its origin is hardly to be thus 
traced to design always prevailing. The most ancient 
notions of religion were the birth of fear and ignorance 
in the earliest ages, and the fancy of the poets mingled 
with these, multiplying and improving and polishing the 
rude imaginations of popular terror and simplicity. 
The rulers of the community, aiding themselves by the 
sanctions which they drew from thence, favoured the 
continuance and propagation of the delusions ; and 
philosophers who afterwards arose among the people 
were neither disposed themselves nor permitted by the 
magistrate openly to expose the errors of the popular 
faith. Hence they taught one doctrine in private, 
while in public they conformed to the prevailing creed, 
and the observances which it enjoined. 

But whatever be the origin of the double doctrine, 
Bishop Warburton cannot expect that its mere existence 
and the use made of it by ancient writers and teachers 



NOTES. 



285 



will prove his position, unless he can show that the 
future state of retribution is only mentioned by them 
upon occasions of an exoterical kind, and never when 
esoterically occupied. Now this he most signally fails 
to do ; indeed he can hardly be said fairly to make the 
attempt, for his rule is to make the tenor of the doctrine 
the criterion of esoteric or exoteric, instead of showing 
the occasion to be one or the other from extrinsic cir- 
cumstances, which is manifestly begging the question 
most unscrupulously. It seems hardly credible that so 
acute and practised a controversialist should so conduct 
an argument, but it is quite true. As often as any 
thing occurs in favour of a Future State, he says it was 
said exoterically ; and whenever he can find anything 
on the opposite side, or leaning towards it, (which is really 
hardly at all in the Platonic or Ciceronian writings,) 
he sets this down for the esoteric sentiments of the 
writer. But surely if there be any meaning at all in 
the double doctrine, whatever may have been its origin, 
the occasion is every thing, and there can be no diffi- 
culty in telling whether any given opinion was main- 
tained exoterically or not, by the circumstances in which, 
and the purposes for which, it was propounded. 

The argument on which he dwells most is drawn from 
the allusion made by Caesar in the discussion upon the 
punishment of the conspirators as related by Sallust, 
" Ultra (mortem) neque curse neque gaudio locum esse;" 
and from the way in which Cato and Cicero evade, he 
says, rather than answer him, appealing to the traditions 
of antiquity and the authority of their ancestors instead 



286 



KOTES. 



of arguing the point. (Div. Leg. III. 2. 5.) Can any 
thing be more inconclusive than this ? Granting that 
Sallust, in making speeches for Caesar and Cato (whom 
by the way he makes speak in the self-same style, that 
is, in his own Sallustian style), adhered to the sentiments 
each delivered ; and further, that Caesar uses this strange 
topic not as a mere rhetorical figure, but as a serious 
reason against capital punishment, and as showing that 
there is mercy and not severity in such inflictions (a 
very strong supposition to make respecting so practised 
and so practical a reasoner as Caius Caesar) ; surely so 
bold a position as practical atheism brought forward in 
the Roman senate was far more likely to be met, whether 
by the decorum of Cato or the skill of Cicero, with a 
general appeal to the prevalence of the contrary belief, 
and its resting on ancient tradition, than with a meta- 
physical or theological discourse singularly out of season 
in such a debate. To make the case our own : let us 
suppose some member of Parliament, or of the Cham- 
ber of Deputies, so ill judged as to denounce in short 
but plain terms the religion of the country, would any 
person advert further to so extravagant a speech than 
to blame it, and in general expressions signify the in- 
dignation it had excited? Would not an answer out 
of Lardner, or Paley, or Pascal be deemed almost as 
ill timed as the attack ? To be sure neither Cato nor 
Cicero are represented as testifying any great disgust 
at the language of Caesar, but this, as well indeed as 
the topic being introduced at all by the latter, only 
shows that the doctrine of a Future State was not one 



NOTES. 



287 



of the tenets much diffused among the people, or held 
peculiarly sacred by them. Had the orator vindicated 
Catiline by showing how much less flagitious his bad 
life was than that of some of the gods to whom altars 
were erected and worship rendered, a very different 
burst of invective would have been called down upon 
the blasphemous offender. 

In truth, the passage thus relied upon only shows, 
like all the rest of the facts, that the doctrine of retri- 
bution was rather more esoteric than exoteric among the 
ancients. The elaborate dissertation of Bishop War- 
burton's upon the Mysteries, proves this effectually, and 
clearly refutes his whole argument. For to prove that 
the doctrine of future retribution was used at all as an 
engine of state, he is forced to allege that it was the secret 
disclosed to the initiated in the Sacred Mysteries ; which, 
according to Cicero, were not to be viewed by the im- 
prudent eye. (Ne impruclentiam quidem oculorum 
adjici fas est, De Legg. II. 14.) Surely this would 
rather indicate that such doctrines were not inculcated 
indiscriminately, and that at all events, when a philo- 
sopher gives them a place in his works, it cannot be in 
pursuance of a plan for deceiving the multitude into a 
belief different from his own. It is indeed plain enough 
that the bulk of the people were restrained, if by any 
sanctions higher than those of the penal laws, rather by 
the belief of constant interposition from the gods. An 
expectation of help from their favour or of punishment 
from their anger in this life and without any delay, 
formed the creed of the Greeks and Romans ; and 



288 



NOTES. 



nothing else is to be found in either the preamble to Za- 
leucus the Locrian's laws quoted by Bishop Warburton, 
or in the passages of Cicero's treatise, to which he also 
refers. (Div. Leg. II. 3.) 

Among the many notable inadvertencies of his argu- 
ment, concealed from himself by an exuberant learning 
and a dogmatism hardly to be paralleled, is the neglect- 
ing to observe how difficultly the appearance of the doc- 
trine in the places where we find it is reconciled with 
his notion of its having formed the subject of the Mys- 
teries. What part in those Mysteries did Cicero's and 
Plato's and Seneca's and Xenophon's writings bear ? 
There we have the doctrine plainly stated ; possibly to 
the world at large — possibly, far more probably, to the 
learned reader only — but assuredly not by the Hierophant 
or the Mystagogne, to the initiated. This is wholly 
inconsistent with the notion of its being reserved for 
these alone. It is equally inconsistent with the theory 
that it was promulgated for the purposes of deception ; for 
such purposes would have been far better served by de- 
cidedly making it a part neither of the instruction given 
to the select and initiated few, nor of the doctrine confined 
to the students of philosophy, but of the common, 
vulgar, popular belief and ritual which it is admitted 
not to have been. The truth undeniably is, that as, on 
the one hand, it was not universally preached and in- 
culcated, so neither was it any mystery forbidden to be 
divulged — that it was no part of the vulgar creed, nor 
yet so repugnant to the religion of the country as to be 
concealed from prudential considerations, like the unity 



NOTES. 



289 



of the Deity, the fabulousness of the ordinary poly- 
theistic superstitions, as to the gods and goddesses, the 
demigods, and the Furies, These opinions were indeed 
esoteric, and only promulgated among the learned. A 
few allusions, and but a few, are found to them in any of 
the classical authors whose writings were intended for 
general perusal, and chiefly to the parts which had in 
process of time become too gross even for the vulgar, 
such as the Furies, Cerberus, &c, which Cicero describes 
as unfit for the belief of even an ignorant or doting old 
woman (Quae anus tarn excors, &c. De Nat. Deor., and 
Tusc. Qucest.), and which are treated as fables both by 
Demosthenes in that noble passage where he exclaims 
that the Furies, who are represented in the scene as 
driving men with burning torches (eaocvsiv 8a<riv su.ij.z- 
vocig), are our bad passions, and by Cicero in words (Hi 
faces, hse flammae, &c.) almost translated from the 
Greek. 

After all, can any thing be more violent than the 
supposition that those philosophers, for the purpose of 
deceiving the multitude, delivered opinions not held by 
themselves, and delivered them in profound philoso- 
phical treatises ? It is in the Pheedo and the Timseus 
(hardly intelligible to the learned), and the Tusculan 
Questions, and the Somnium Scipionis, in an age when 
there were hardly any readers beyond the disciples of 
the several sects, that those exoteric matters are supposed 
to be conveyed for accomplishing the purposes of popular 
delusion — not in poems and speeches, read in the Portico 
or pronounced in the Forum. If then the records of their 

o 



290 



NOTES. 



opinions on the most recondite subjects were chosen for 
the depositories of exoteric faith, where are we to look for 
their esoteric doctrines ? Bishop Warburton must needs 
answer, in the very same records ; for to this he is driven, 
because he has none other ; and he cannot choose but 
admit that the whole argument is utterly defective, if it 
stops short at only showing those opinions to have been 
delivered, even if proved to be exoterical, unless he can 
also show opposite doctrines to have been esoterically en- 
tertained — inasmuch as a person might grant the former 
to have been delivered for popular use (which, however, 
Bishop Warburton does not prove), and yet deny that 
they were assumed for the purpose of deception. Ac- 
cordingly he is driven to find, if he can, proofs of those 
opposite doctrines in the self-same writings, where he 
says the exoteric ones are conveyed. However, nothing 
surely can be more absurd than this ; for it is to main- 
tain that Plato and Cicero pretended to believe a future 
state of retribution in order to deceive the multitude, 
by stating it in the same writings in which they 
betrayed their real sentiments to be the very reverse. 
And this absurdity is the same, and this argument 
is as cogent, if we take the double doctrine to apply, 
not — as we are, in favour of the Bishop's argument, 
generally supposing — to a difference between what was 
taught in the face of the people and what was reserved 
for the scholars, but to a division of the scholars into 
two classes, one only of whom was supposed to see the 
whole truth — for the same writings on this subject are 
said to contain both the statements of it. Nevertheless 



NOTES. 



291 



let us shortly see how he finds any such contrary state- 
ments, or any means of explaining away the positive and 
precise dicta, and even reasonings, cited in the former 
note (Note VIII.) 

1. There can be no doubt that both the Greek and 
Roman philosophers disbelieved part of the popular 
doctrine as to future retribution, those punishments, to 
wit, which are of a gross and corporeal nature ; and, 
accordingly, what Timaeus the Locrian and others have 
said of the n^uopicci fevou proves nothing, for it applies 
to those only. Strabo plainly speaks of these only in 
the passage where he observes that women and the 
vulgar are not to be kept pious and virtuous by the 
lessons of philosophy, but by superstition, which cannot 
be maintained without mythology (fable-making) and 
prodigies (5ia Ssia-iSai^ovias' rovro £' qvk avsv (xvQoifoias 
koci rspocr'Eiots), for he gives as examples of these, Jupiter's 
Thunder, the Snakes of the Furies, &c. 

2. Nothing can be more vague than the inference 
drawn from such passages as those in Cicero and Seneca, 
where a doubt is expressed on the subject of a Future 
State, and a wish of more cogent proofs seems betrayed 
— as where Cicero makes one of his prolocutors, in the 
Tusculan Questions, say, that when he lays down the 
Pheedo, which had persuaded him, " Assensio omnis ilia 
elabitur" (i. 11.), and when Seneca speaks of the philoso- 
phers as " rem gratissimam promittentes magis quam 
probentes," and calls it " bellum somnium." Epist. 102. 
No one pretends that the ancients had a firm and 
abiding opinion, founded on very cogent reasons, re- 

o 2 



292 



NOTES. 



specting a Future State ; and with far sounder theolo- 
gians than they were, the anxiety naturally incident to 
so momentous an inquiry may well excite occasional 
doubts, and even apprehensions. Who questions Dr. 
Johnson's general belief in Revelation, because in mo- 
ments of depression, when desiderating some stronger 
evidence, he was kindly told by a religious friend that 
he surely had enough, and answered, " Sir, I would have 
more V 

3. When Strabo speaks of the Brahmins having in- 
vented fables, like Plato, upon future judgment, it is 
plain that he alludes to those speculations in the Phsedo, 
which are avowedly and purposely given as imaginary 
respecting the details of another world. To no other 
part of the Platonic doctrine can the Brahminical my- 
thology be likened : nor would there be any accuracy of 
speech at all in comparing those fables to the more 
abstract doctrines of the immortality of the soul, as the 
words literally do — (taows§ y.oli TlXaroov it&^i rrjs oupQao- 

4. The quotation from Aristotle may refer to this 
world merely, but it is certainly made a good deal 
stronger in Bishop Warburton's translation — <pofis%uo?a,- 

fOV h $0CVCCT0$' TtE%OL$ yap, KM 0V§SV Ztl 700 7E§V£'J07l $ OVX 

sij ours ccyctQov, ours kcckov eivou. " Death (as our author 
renders it) is of all things the most terrible ; for it is 
the final period of existence, and beyond that, it appears 
there is neither good nor evil for the dead man to dread 
or hope.' , This is, at the best, a mere paraphrase. Aris- 
totle says — Death is most terrible, for it is an end (of 



NOTES. 



293 



us} , and there appears to be nothing further, good or 
bad, for the dead. Even were we to take this as an 
avowal of the Stagyrite's opinion in the sense given it by 
Bishop Warburton, it proves nothing as to Plato. 

4. Some of the Stoics seem certainly to have held that 
the dissolution of the body closed the scene, and that 
the body ceased to exist by the resolving of its mortal 
frame into the kindred elements. Nevertheless, many of 
their observations may be conceived to regard the vulgai 
superstitions, and many of their sayings to flow from the 
habit of grandiloquent contempt for all bodily suffering, 
However, no one maintains that all the ancient seels ol 
Theists, and each disciple of every sect, firmly believed 
in a future state; and it must be remarked that the 
question raised by Bishop Warburton being as to the 
belief in a state of retribution, his citations from Seneca 
and Epictetus go to deny the future continuance of the 
soul altogether. Now he does not deny that at least 
some of the ancients did believe in this. 

5. But the authority of Cicero presses our author the 
most closely, and accordingly he makes great efforts to 
escape from it. After showing some circumstances, 
rather of expression than any thing else, in his philoso- 
phical treatises, he cites the oration Pro Cluentio, where, 
speaking of the vulgar superstition, he says it is gene- 
rally disbelieved, and then asks, " Quid aliud mors eri- 
puit prseter sensum doloris ?" But this at best is a rhe- 
torical flourish ; and being delivered in public (though 
before the judges) never could be seriously meant as 
an esoteric attack on the doctrine. The doctrines in 



294 



NOTES. 



the De Officiis relate only to the Deity's being incapable 
of anger or malevolence, on which account he praises 
Regulus the more for keeping his oath when all philo- 
sophers knew nec irasci Deum nec nocere ; which shows, 
according to our author, that Cicero could not believe in 
future retribution. But this is said by Cicero only in 
reference to immediate punishments, or judgments, as 
the vulgar term them. At any rate, the passage is quite 
capable of this sense, and every rule of sound construc- 
tion binds us to prefer it as consistent with the other 
passages on a future state, while those passages will bear 
no meaning but one. We may here observe, in passing, 
the gratuitous manner in which works are held esoteric 
and exoteric, just as suits the purposes of the argument. 
The Offices contain the above passage, and therefore, 
Bishop Warburton says it is the work which "bids the 
fairest of any to be spoken from the heart." The passage 
in the Somnium Scipionis, " Omnibus qui patriam con- 
servarint, adjuverint, auxerint, certum esse in ccelo, ad 
definitum locum ubi beati eevo sempiterno fruantur," 
(Som. Scip. 37,) is got rid of, by saying that the ancients 
believed souls to be either human, or heroic and demonic, 
and that the two last went to heaven to enjoy eternal 
happiness, but that the former, comprehending the bulk 
of mankind, did not. This is begging the question to 
no purpose, for it is also giving up the point, and at 
the utmost only reduces the author's position to a denial 
that the ancients believed in the immortality of all souls. 
It must, however, be observed, that unless he is allowed 
to assume also something like election and predestina- 



NOTES. 



295 



tion, he gains hardly even this in his argument ; for if a 
man by patriotic conduct can become one of the heroic 
souls, and so gain eternal life, what more distinct admis- 
sion can be desired of a future state of retribution ? That 
ther doctrine of immortality was, by many at least, con- 
fined in some such way, may be true. The beautiful 
passage in Tacitus seems to point that way, cC Si non 
cum corpore extinguuntur magnce animae." — (Vit. Ag. 
sub Jin.) The main proof, however, against Cicero's 
belief is drawn from the Epistles, where alone, says our 
author, we can be sure of his speaking his real senti- 
ments. Yet never did proof more completely fail. 
Writing to Torquatus, he says, " Nec enim dum ero, 
angar ulla re, cum omni vacem culpa — et si non ero, 
sensu omnino carebo," (Lib. vi. Ep. 31.); — and to 
Toranius, " Ima ratio videtur, ferre moderate, prgesertim 
cum omnium rerum mors sit extremum," (Lib.vi.Ep.21.) 
And this, which really means nothing more than a com- 
mon remark on death ending all our pains and troubles, 
the learned author calls " professing his disbelief in a 
future state of retribution in the frankest manner." — 
Div. Leg. iii. 3. 

It seems, therefore, not too much to say that the 
Divine Legation does not more completely fail in proving 
the grand paradox which forms the main object of the 
argument, and which has been parodied by Soame 
Jenyns, in his most injudicious defence of Christianity, 
than it does in supporting the minor paradox which is 
taken up incidentally as to the real opinions of the 
ancients, and which, it must be admitted, is indeed quite 



296 



ISOTES. 



unnecessary to the general argument, and as little da- 
mages it by its entire failure, as it could help it by the 
most entire success. 



Note X.— Section VI., p. 138. 

A learned and valuable work upon the life of Lord 
Bacon is prepared for publication by Mr. B. Montague, 
and will soon be before the world. Some very important 
facts are proved satisfactorily by the ingenious author, 
and show how much the criminality of this great man is 
exaggerated in the common accounts of his fall. But 
it is clearly shown, that he was prevailed upon by the 
intrigues of James I. and his profligate minister to aban- 
don his own defence, and sacrifice himself to their base 
and crooked policy — a statement which disgraces them 
more than it vindicates him. One thing, however, is 
undeniable, that they who so loudly blame Bacon, over- 
look the meanness of almost all the great statesmen of 
those courtly times. 



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which shall steadily keep in view the purpose of extracting solid information out of a 
plain and familiar regard of the common objects by which young persons are sur- 
rounded, — by making them acquainted with the history of their own and of other 
countries, — of describing the customs and remarkable objects of foreign lands, and of 
inculcating practical notions of moral obligation. 



Preparing for Publication by Charles Knight. 3 



The following Works will be among the earliest of the Series : — 

1. HISTORICAL PICTURES.— ENGLAND. Vol. I., with Forty- 
two YVo d-cuts, after designs by W.Harvey. Price 3*. bound in cloth. 
Vols. II. and III, similarly illustrated, and completing the Work, will 
speedily follow. 

2. UNCLE OLIVER'S TRAVELS.— PERSIA. Vol. I., with Six- 
teen Wood-cuts. Price 3s. bound in cloth. Vol. II., completing the 
Work, wili be published after a very short interval. 

3. HISTORIC SKETCHES OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 
Vol. I., with Eight Wood-cuts. Price 2s. bound in cloth. Vol. II., 
completing the Work, will appear without delay. 

4. THE OLD SPORTS OF ENGLAND, with Twenty-four Wood- 
cuts. Price 2s. 6d. bound in c'.oth. 

5. PLAIN HISTORIES OF COMMON THINGS. Three Volumes. 

6. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE MENAGERIES ; being an 
Abridgment and Simplification of ' The Menageries,' in the ' Library 
of Entertaining Knowledge.' 

7. COUNTRY WALKS, ON HALF-HOLIDAYS.— BIRDS. 
Two Volumes. 

8. COUNTRY WALKS, ON HALF-HOLIDAYS.— INSECTS. 
Two Volumes. 

9. COUNTRY WALKS, ON HALF-HOLIDAYS. — PLANTS- 
Two Volumes. 

10. THE CAPTIVITY AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN TAN- 
NER, during thirty Years' Residence among the Indians in the Interior 
of North America. Abridged from the American Edition, and adapted 
for Young Persons, with Conversations on each Chapter. By the Author 
of the 1 Results of Machinery.' Two Volumes. 

Education . 

THE SCHOOLMASTER. Essays on Practical Education, partly 
selected from the ' Quarterly Journal of Education,' and other Works, 
and partly original. Two Vols., 12mo. 

Contents : — Vol. I. Education generally, including the Education of 
the People.-*- Analysis of Ascham's Schoolmaster, with Wolsey's Direc- 
tions for Ipswich School — Of Education ; to Master Samuel Hartlib ; by 
Mdton — Analysis of Locke's Thoughts on Education — Way land's In- 
troductory Discourse ; delivered before, and published by, the American 
Institute of Instruction — Moral Education, from the ' Journal of Educa- 
tion' — Early Education, from the same — Female Education, from the 
same — Warren on Physical Education, from the Lectures before the 
American Institute — Oliver on the Monitorial System, from the same — 
Parkhurst's Motives to study without Emulation, from the same — On 
the construction of School-rooms, from the same — Difficulty of supplying 
the want of Early Education, original — Institutions for Adult Education, 
original — Education among the Poorer Classes, from the ' J ournal of 
Education' — Cheap Periodical Publications, original. 

Vol. II. Particular Branches of Education. — On Teaching Reading, 
from the ' Journal of Education' — Thayer, on the Spelling of Words, 
from the Lectures before the American Institute — On Teaching by 
Pictures from the ( Journal of Education' — On Teaching Arithmetic, 



4 



Preparing for Publication by Charles Knight. 



from the same — On Teaching Fractional Arithmetic, from the same — 
Method of Teaching Geometry, from the same — On Mathematical In- 
struction, from the same — On Geographical and Statistical Knowledge, 
from the same — Necessity for General Instruction in Political Economy, 
original — On the Study of Natural Philosophy, from the 'Journal of 
Education' — Durgin on Natural History as a Branch of Education, from 
the Lectures hefore the American Institute — Lecture on the Greek and 
Latin Languages, delivered before the University of London, by G. Long, 
Esq. — Method of Teaching Modern Languages, from the ' Journal of 
Education' — Method of Teaching French, from the same — On the Study 
of the Italian Language and Literature, from the same — On Teaching 
Drawing, from the same — On Teaching Music, from the same — Deaf 
and Dumb Institution at Doncaster, from the same. 

Class Book. 

READING LESSONS FOR SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES, se- 
lected from Works of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- 
ledge. One Volume, 12mo. 

Pompeii. 

POMPEII. A fine Edition, reprinted from the ' Library of Enter- 
taining Knowledge,' with a Supplement and some additional Illustrations. 
Two Volumes, post 8vo. 

Hogarth. 

SELECT WORKS OF HOGARTH. Containing about Forty 
Wood-cuts, engraved by J. Jackson, including those which have appeared 
in the ' Penny Magazine.' With Explanatory Descriptions. One Volume, 
crown folio. 

Statistics. 

THE STATISTICS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. By J. R. 

M'Cuu.och, Esq. One Volume, 8vo. 



UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR 
THE DIFFUSION OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE. 

The Library of Political Knowledge. 

To be published in Volumes about every Two Months, each Volume con- 
taining 350 pages, or upwards, 12mo., bound in cloth, and sold at 4?. 
The following Works of this Series are in preparation, and will succes- 
sively appear : — 

THE PROGRESS OF THE NATION, from the commencement of 
the present Century. By G. R. Porter, Esq. This Work, which will 
be completed in Two Volumes, will be arranged under the Heads of Popu- 
lation, Production, Interchange, Public Revenue and Expenditure, Con- 
sumption, Accumulation, Moral Progress, and Foreign Dependencies. 

SKETCHES of POPULAR TUMULTS, illustrative of the Evils of 
Social Ignorance. Two volumes. The Tumults described in these volumes 
will be. thus classed : — Tumults of Religious Fanaticism ; Tumults of 



Preparing for Publication by Charles Knight. 5 



Political Excitement ; Tumults for Lowering the price of Provisions ; 
Tumults for Raising the Rate of Wages ; Tumults for the Destruction of 
Machinery, and Prevention of Communication ; Tumults under the Visit- 
ation of Pestilent Disease, &c. 

A KEY to the POLITICAL HISTORY of ENGLAND since the 
REVOLUTION of 1688. One Volume. The following are the principal 
contents of this Work: — History of Parties; Tables of the Changes in the 
Chief Offices of Administration ; Parliamentary Register, including Chrono- 
logical Accounts of Meetings, Prorogations, and Dissolutions of Parliament, 
Speakers, and principal recorded Divisions ; Treaties of Peace, &c. &c. 

THE CITIZEN. Two Volumes. This Digest of the Public and 
Private Duties of British subjects, which has been announced as a sepa- 
rate Periodical Work, will appear in the ' Library of Political Knowledge.' 



MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
Paley. 

PALEY'S NATURAL THEOLOGY ILLUSTRATED. With Notes 
raid Dissertations, by Henry Lord Brougham, F.R.S., Member of the 
National Institute of France, and Sir Charles Bell, F.R.S. With 
numerous Wood-cuts. Three Volumes, post 8vo. 

The First Volume will consist of A DISCOURSE ON NATURAL 
THEOLOGY, the Nature of the Evidence, and Advantages of the Study. 
By Lord Brougham. 

Hoi? to observe. 

GEOLOGY. By H. T. De la Beche, Esq. One Volume, post 8vo., 
with numerous Wood-cuts. 

' How to Observe,' of which each Part will be distinct, though connected 
by a common object, will be completed in Four Volumes. The remaining 
portions, in which the names of the respective authors of each article will 
be given, will comprise the following general divisions : — 

NATURAL HISTORY— FINE ARTS— SOCIETY. 

Manufactures. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUFACTURES; or an Exposition of 
the Scientific, Moral, and Commercial Economy of the Factory System of 
Great Britain. Bv Andrew Ure, M D., F.R.S , M.G.S., M.A.S. London ; 
M. Acad. N. S., Philad., &c. One Vol., post 8vo. 

The preceding Work, which is intended to form a general treatise in 
itself on the automatic industry of Great Britain, is introductory to, and 
forms part of, a work, by the same Author, which is preparing for immediate 
publication, in 2 vols., post 8vo., entitled 

THE COTTON MANUFACTURE, in Theory and Practice. This 
Work will be illustrated throughout by a series of Engravings, repre- 
senting the structure and operation of every important machine used in 
the spinning, weaving, frame-knitting, and lace-making processes, as also 
the principles of factory architecture. The book has been two years in 
preparation. The drawings were made by eminent artists, under the 
author's superintendence in the factory districts. 



6 Preparing for Publication by Charles Knight. 



The present is distinguished from every preceding age by an universal ardour of en- 
terprise in the arts and manufactures. Nations, convinced at length that war is always 
a losing game, have converted their swords and muskets into factory implements, and 
now contend with each other in the bloodless but still formidable strife of trade. They 
no longer send troops to fight on distant fields, but fabrics to drive before them those of 
their old adversaries in arms, and to take possession of a foreign mart. To paralvze the 
industiyof a rival at home, by underselling his wares abroad, is the new belligerent 
system, in the pursuance of which every nerve and sinew of the people are put upon 
the strain. Great Britain may certainly continue to uphold her envied supiemacy, 
sustained by her coal, iron, capital, and skill, if, acting on the Baconian axiom " Know- 
ledge is Power," she study to promote moral and professional culture among all ranks 
of her productive population. Were the principles of the manufactures exactlv 
analyzed and expounded in a simple manner, they would diffuse a steady light to con- 
duct the masters, managers, and operatives in the straight paths of improvement, and 
prevent them from pursuing such dangerous phantoms as the monthly list of patents 
exhibits. Each department of our useful arts stands in need of a guide-book to 
facilitate its study, to indicate its imperfections, and to suggest the probable means of 
correcting them. It is known that the cotton trade of Fiance has derived great ad- 
vantage from the illustrated system of instruction published at the expense of its go- 
vernment. 

The present Work is submitted to the public as a specimen of the manner in which 
the author eonceives a manufacture should be discussed. After an experience of 
twenty-five years as a public professor in teaching the scientific principles of the arts, 
and extensive practice in their processes, he trusts he is not unprepared to discharge 
the task in hand with credit to himself and advantage to his country. He has, more- 
over, been liberally aided in his researches by some of the most accomplished manu- 
facturers and engineers in the kingdom. 

Wealth of Nations* 

A New Edition of 
ADAM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS. With a Preface and 
Notes, critical and explanatory, by the Author of ' England and America.' 
To be completed in 5 vols., royal 18mo., of about 500 pages, at 5*. each 
volume, bound in cloth, and published at intervals not exceeding three 
months. 

This publication has been undertaken with the following objects: — First, to explain 
the grounds on which a few of the doct rines of the illustrious author of the ' Wealth of 
Nations ' are now generally allowed to be erroneous ; secondly, to vindicate, by illus- 
trating, some of his doctrines which modern writers have impugned; thirdly, to point 
out some apparent errors in his great work which have been overlooked by his critics; 
fourthly, to ascertain in what respects the ' Wealth of Nations,' and other celebrated 
works on the same subject, seem to be deficient as treatises on political economy ; 
lastly, and above all, by means of cheapness, to place within the reach of the middle 
and working-classes a book which, even if its subject matter had not " come home to 
the business and bosoms of all men," would have been classical on account of its ad- 
mirable English. Hitherto, only the richer classes have had ready access to the most 
valuable treatise on the most important worldly subject that can occupy the human 
mind. No book, perhaps, is so commonly borrowed as the ' Wealth of Nations ;' be- 
cause, while it must be read by every one who would acquire but a decent stock of 
political knowledge, it has not been published at a moderate price. Concerning the 
proposed additions to the text, all that can be promised is, that they shall have one 
general and constant aim— the pursuit, with regard to the question examined, of the 
truth, and nothing but the truth ; from which it may appear that, in the science of 
political economy, a great deal remains to be discovered before the whole truth shall 
be established. 

Table Talk. 

The BOOK OF TABLE TALK, To be published in occasional 
Volumes, price 5*. each volume, bound in cloth. 

The object of this Work is to bring together, in the most complete, and at the same 
time compendious rorm, a great body of the most interesting and curious facts which 
are scattered over the manifold volumes comprising the Public, Social, and Literary 
History of our own and of other countries. The Work will aim at a higher character than 
that of being a mere book of anecdote Tho «ubWts will be sn-ouped in a manner that 
will appear as the reflection of actual conversation, ana the reader, who at first takes 
up the book for amusement only, will be ultimately enabled, by the rid of an analytical 



Preparing for Publication bij Charles Knight. 



7 



index, to refer to a mass of information upon the chief subjects of permanent conver- 
sational interest, more full and exact than in any other work of so miscellaneous a cha- 
racter. The object proposed will be principally attained by the co-operation of many 
writers, whose range of information upon particular branches of knowledge is well 
defined. 

Health. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEALTH; Or, an Exposition of the 
Physical and Mental Constitution of Man, with a view to the Promotion 
of Human Longevity and Happiness. Vol.11. By Southwo<>d Smith, 
M.D. 

Lord's Prayer. 

EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS of the LORD'S PRAYER, from the 
designs of the late John Flaxman, R.A., drawn on stone by Richard 
Lane, A.R.A., and now first published. 

In royal 8vo., on India paper, price 5s. sewed. 

China. 

CHINA. An Account of the Progressive European Intercourse, the 
present Commercial Relations, the Productions, Government, Literature, 
Arts, and Customs of that country. With Wood-cuts ; one volume, 
post 8vo. 

Force and Reason. 
CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN. A Poem. By Leigh 
Hunt. With some remarks on War and Military Statesmen. 

" If there be in glory aught of good, 

It may, by means far different, be attained, 
Without ambition, war, or violence."— Milton. 
Small 8vo., illustrated with Engravings on Wood, price 3*. 6d. sewed, 
or 4s. 6d. bound in cloth. 

London. 

The STREETS of the METROPOLIS, their MEMORIES and 
GREAT MEN. By Leigh Hunt. With numerous Wood-cuts, Vol. I. 
royal 18mo. 

Arithmetic. 

CONVERSATIONS ON ARITHMETIC. By Mrs. G. R. Porter, 
Author of ' Alfred Dudley,' &c. One vol. 12mo. 

Latin Poets. 

CORPUS POETARUM LATINORUM. Edited by W. S. Walker, 
Esq., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. One large vol. 8vo., bound 
in cloth, 1/. 5s. 

The Authors comprised in this volume constitute The Whole of the 
Classical Latin Poets, chronologically arranged, with brief notices of 
their Lives. 

The Texts of the Corpus Poetarum have not only been selected by the Editor from 
the best editions, but the Orthography and Punctuation have been by him reduced 
to a uniform standard. The greatest care has been taken to insure correctness in 
Printing. 

The peculiar advantages of this Edition are its portability and its cheapness. 
The whole body of Latin Poetiy may now lie for referknce on the table of the 
student, in a single volume, printed in a type of great distinctness. The very lowest 
price of a Pocket Edition of these authors, who are here given ENTIRE, WITHOUT THE 
omission of a single line, is about Six Guineas. In the common Delphin Edition, 
they amount to Eight Guineas. The Corpus Poetarum, at the present reduced 
price, is not equal to one-fourth of the cost of any edition, even of the Text only, of 
.he Latin poets. 



i/*t 



